Black and Beautiful

One of the first things I learned as I soaked in The Song of Songs a number of years ago is that I am beautiful to the Lover of our souls. Flat out beautiful! And so are YOU. We have so many voices speaking to our vises and our "sins"--this is sin and that is sin. If you explore this you're a sinner, if you move in that direction you're a sinner. Martin Luther's picture of our soul's being a dung hill that's simply covered by the blood of Jesus isn't a pretty one. It doesn't give us a chance unless we believe a certain way.

But that's not what I learned from those years in the Song. We are LOVELY. We are SPOTLESS. YOU may see a spot in me, but the Great Lover doesn't. I may see a plank in your eye, but Divine Love sees nothing but beauty. "There is not spot in you...only beauty." Believe it. Nothing to do, nothing to work for, nothing to say, nothing but the voice of the Beloved saying "You are all fair my love; there is no spot in you."

Sometimes It's Like Walking On Water

For the past month, I've been reading daily through Jean-Yves Leloup's The Gospel of Thomas, complete with commentary. It has been such a blessing to let these wisdom sayings drip into my heart. I am grateful to Cynthia Bourgeault for her recommendation.

I read this "Logion" (saying) this morning--similar to a very familiar passage of Scripture in the canonical Gospels, and almost skipped the commentary because of the familiarity of the saying. I'm so glad I didn't.


Logion 66

Yeshua said:

Show me the stone rejected by the builders.
That is the cornerstone.

Can a society be built without Love or, in another term, without God? Can it hold together without this cornerstone?

Such a society holds together through common interests but collapses through special interests.

Love has been excluded from our theories of economics, as well as from our educational curricula. Sometimes people even exclude it from their lives. We can exist without love, without God. But what is such an existence worth?

In our own life we must look deeply enough to examine honestly what we have habitually rejected from the edifice of our personality. Might it be a certain desire, a certain longing, or even an experience of hell?

The rejected cornerstone can be hidden in the most surprising places. Sometimes our wholeness wells up from the very heart of what we have repressed.