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Christmas Angel - Sulamith Wülfing |
THE CHRIST CHILD IS THE SIMPLE CHILD - By William Samuel
—BEYOND METAPHYSICS
Christmas is for children, therefore it is for everyone. All men are little boys at heart; all women, little girls. If the child-joy of the holidays has lessened over the years, it is only because the child-one-is has grown world-weary of the struggle to measure up to everyone’s expectations—tired of intellectualism, of the ponderous choices that judgment demands and of the guilt we allow to be heaped on the heart.
If one would joy in the holidays again—as in those days of yore when, in anticipation of Christmas, evergreens were decorated in the schoolroom with homemade decorations and popcorn, when childhood gifts were wrapped and buried under the tree in secret, and the grand fragrance of pine and burning logs and candles filled the home, and colored lights twinkled through the tinsel on the tree… If we would full feel those pleasures again with enthusiasm unabated by years then let us uncover and vent the HEART again! Let us put intellectualism aside for a time and let the child-heart sing.
We really ARE children “at heart” and remain so eternally. No matter how one’s world may seem this day as these words are read, the child of us still lives! Lives as much as ever it did in years gone by—as much and as lively!
Gentle grandmother with tear-streaked face, longing for children and companions in distant places, listen to Me: you have NOT been left behind to grow old. You are not one bit less Child than they. Not one bit less aware. Not less joyous nor alive than they. You are this day LESS the adult, MORE the Child. Our years past are the adult lived in vain—that we could find the Child again! The WHOLE Child; the Christ Child. The Heart of us is the Christ Child right here, right Now.
ALL –RIGHTNESS
Reader, let me paint a simple picture for you, the Substance of which (behind the words, beyond the words) touches down DIRECTLY on the heart of “illumination” and its attendant “Peace that passeth understanding.”
Suppose this very minute we are seated in a comfortable little cottage surrounded by the familiar objects we have grown to love. Outside stands a great White Oak, tall strong and silent in the quiet of evening. A late Fall sun hangs low and yellow in the sky. A distant hawk soars high and proud, circling its nest below. The fragrance of the season fills the air. Distant sounds whisper of happiness; little boys calling their dogs, little girls giggling. The aroma of something cooking tells of a meal to be enjoyed soon.
There is a quiet peace in such a moment, is there not? Yes—an inner sense of all-rightness. And it deepens. The year end serenade of crickets adds another dimension. Croaks of fat frogs add depth to the reverie. Anticipation of a book to read, a visit from a friend, a favorite television show add the sage and spice. All these small things conspire to open the sleeping heart and vent that wondrous inside feeling of all-rightness. In such a moment we breathe lightly, our feet barely touch the ground and all is well with the world. All-rightness!
Our scene continues and the stars are popping out one by one, twinkling. The older frogs are getting in to the act now—basses and contraltos, depending on girth of rib-cage and size of mouth. The hawk has settled on a limb near its nest. The dinner’s aroma is all there; the book awaits an opening and turning of the pages; the friend is still to visit… All-rightness! All-rightness!
But the phone rings suddenly, loudly, urgently. An excited voice tells you you are just one more struggle away from some grand human achievement—an office perhaps, or the winning of something spectacular, complete with accolade to swell the ego. “What move are you going to make now?” the voice asks excitedly. “You must do something quickly!” it commands. The thought comes that you are only a few social obligations from fulfilling your weekly, monthly, yearly duties—or only a few maneuvers from a big splash or grand promotion or something else contingent on living up to the expectations of others. What happens now to our sense of All-rightness? What happens, what happens, what happens…?
(Oh gentle reader, read now with your heart! The words alone can’t say it all, but your heart can hear and feel beyond the intellect’s highest plateau and understand beyond the limits of science’s reason and logic.) The phone has rung. An assortment of sordid thoughts has entered the scene—as nearly ALWAYS they do. But the stars are still twinkling. The ingredients, the SUBSTANCE of the evening’s All-rightness, HAVE NOT CHANGED ONE WHIT. But the world with its limits of intellectualism has beckoned. Human position, power, prestige, security and satisfaction may have been waved in your face like a proud banner to be won. Once again we have heard the old refrain, “Worship me and I will give you everything this world has to offer. Fall down at my feet and I will shower you with all the world holds dear. Ah, but there is one thing to be withheld.”
What is withheld? Always, always, that sweet, simple sense of All-rightness. That restful, joyful feeling of All-rightness. The joy of the here and now MOMENT, uncluttered, free, pristine, pure and clearly discerned; the exuberant joy, the here and now consciousness of simplicity as it IS; the wonder of small things, the conscious experience of an unchallenged humility; the heard sounds of crickets and little girls giggling; the LISTENED TO sounds of happy dogs frisking and dinner dishes tinkling; the enjoyed feeling of anticipation: simplicity lived and enjoyed without worry, without competition, without concern for offending someone or failing to measure up to others’ expectations; without concern for personal position at all.
Consider the activity surrounding most (but not all!) of those in high places, those successful in the eyes of the world. Consider the pressures, the demands, the planning and calculating, the decisions and groping efforts to arrive at this goal. Imagine the manipulation, the demonstration, the desire, the anguishing aches and pains, frustrations, and confusions to FORCE everything to conform to a human concept of success and happiness. What does all this do to our evening sky? Nothing at all to the sky—but what havoc we allow it to play to the comprehension of the evening sky!
Who can see a star while worrying about a reputation to defend? Who can smell the simple fragrance of a freshly pressed dress while scurrying to uphold a vaunted position or while attempting to measure up to the never ending demands of family, friends and society to whom no measure is ever sufficient? From the beginning we have been told and told and told that personal desire is anathema to the delicate equilibrium of FELT inner peace, the conscious presence of All-rightness! “How in hell many times do I have to be told!?” I asked myself that day I bent down at the pond, drank its cool water, stood up and beheld a new heaven and a new earth everywhere. That day I became CONSCIOUS of the All-rightness of EVERYTHING just as it is.
Having discovered the loveliness and gentleness of All-rightness, why give it up for anything so temporal as personal position or prestige—or to a personal ability and power believed to be owned by a ‘me’?
“But that isn’t practical enough!” shouted Lee Ann. “The phone DID ring. Demands ARE made of me. My sense of All-rightness was shattered. How does one hold to those magic moments, Master Han?”
“By not allowing unimportant matters to shatter them,” the old man answered softly. “We all seem to fall away,” he continued, “and this is how it should be, else one would never let go the identity who believes it can fall and needs to be lifted again.”
“You are talking riddles,” shouted Ho. “I am a business man. I can’t spend all my time gawking at the sky and listening to bullfrogs!”
“Nor can I,” laughed Han. “One doesn’t have to when he finds that the evening sky, the frogs, the phone calls and feelings are not OUTSIDE the very God-awareness one is. The UNIVERSE exists within the awareness, the Life, that hears these words. It is this knowledge, not what one sees, that allows one to be conscious of All-rightness.”
“Then a business man can experience this wonder in the midst of his activity?” asked Ho.
“Yes,” said Han emphatically, “so long as selfish motive and desire are subdued. Even the soldier in the midst of battle is not separate from All-rightness. He may become aware of it at any moment.”
Reader, I know this is so BECAUSE I HAVE LIVED IT SO—as a struggling business man—as an Infantry soldier in battle.
“But why did you have to do those things?” I’ve been asked many times.
How ELSE could I KNOW beyond the human limit of reason and logic that “All-rightness is “without variableness, neither shadow of turning”? That All-rightness is the Comforter whom the Christ Child speaks of with such authority? That the Child-Joy of EVERY season remains unabated? That “lest ye become again as little children…”?
So, what to do after the disquieting phone call? How about taking that walk after dinner to hear the bullfrogs? And a time by the fire or in front of the Christmas tree just watching sparkles, twinkles and dreams through the eyes of childhood? It could just be, and likely will, that during those quiet moments the “what to do” about the phone call will drop in your lap like a sugarplum.
The tender heart, in moments of honesty and childlikeness, will at special moments allow one to become aware of a new heaven and earth; a new land of perfection and well-being, already present here and now, spread over the whole face of the land—and a perfect harmony that has always been here as our very own Life and Being. It is as though, in these moments of inner clarity, the resistless Child of us allows something to flow from the peripheral unconscious into the conscious; as if, for a moment, the ego-playing mask is put aside and in an instant we see, hear, feel and know some small aspect of Being unseen before. This knowing comes with its own grace and absolute certainty… for a moment.
For a moment? Why just a moment?
Listen gently: However unregenerate, scarlet and guilty we may think we are, these special moments are not uncommon to any of us. They happen often but are so quickly under attack. While they arrive like a cooling, healing rain on parched land, though they come like a breath of fresh air, like sunshine, like a smile, like a gentle touch, like laughter, like the song of a night bird in the midst of a dark and sleepless night, they come also like a swinging, sundering sword, like sharp spike that shakes, shatters, slaps and sickens the old nature of us and sends the fearful of us back to the ego-defenses again—that put the old mask in place again.
For me—and I can speak of no other experience with authority—each new glimmer of Light has come from my anguish, helplessness and childlikeness. Yet, it was only a matter of days, hours, minutes until that very glimmer had so aroused and angered the intellect of me, the adult of me, the great “common sense” and smartness of me, that I would shove the New Light back into the darkness of intellectualism. “I was just carried away. It was the emotion of the moment” I would say attempting to limit the Illimitable to an explanation, as the intellect ever insists!
But, Reader, now I know—I KNOW without doubt or reservation, “without purpose of evasion”—that the immaculate Child is ever-present to disclose the utter simplicity of Being and its All-rightness! Yes. Yes, this is so! The Child of us LIVES!
Who sees the sparkling stars? Who enjoys the brighted Christmas tree, hears the carol, smells the Yule log and scented candle? Whose LIFE is here but God-Life-I?
Where is the bell tower that heralds the season? Where falls the soft snow? Where is the laughing face, the ribboned gift, the mistletoe and the vision of sugar-plums? Here! Here as Identity-I! Here as the Child-awareness that God-Life is! Here as the very one WE are.
Yes! The One WE are.
Finally, dear friend…
…as the old crumbles around us, as the era of shadows ends,
we need not be disturbed. The demise of valuelessness is the end of nothing. It is, rather, the recognition of Something! Holding to childlike simplicity, we see the profound. Ever searching for the profound, simplicity escapes us… So, we live the Child—and find our guiltlessness, our freedom, our All-rightness—and our Comforter!
Warm Love From Woodsong,
William Samuel
Essay from Woodsong Journal Notes by William Samuel - December 1980
