I will be still an instant and go home.
I will be still a moment and go home.
This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And
somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home
keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return,
although you do not recognize the Voice nor what it is the Voice reminds
you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.
Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile
here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb,
at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to
return to mind again.
No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by
their suffering in games they play to occupy their time and keep their
sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad and do not
recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we
speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet
who in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would
deny he understands the words we speak?
We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is
not at home. He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in
darkness what he cannot find, not recognizing what it is he seeks. A
thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does
not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks cannot be made by
him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.
Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would
find again. The childhood of your body and its place of shelter are a
memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that
never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father's house
and knows that He is alien here. This Childhood is eternal, with an
innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy
ground. It is His holiness that lights up Heaven and that brings to
earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and
Heaven joined as one.
It is this Child in you your Father knows as His own Son.
It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply,
so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He
does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite—just an
interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills
His Father's house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give
Him just a little time to be Himself within the peace that is His home,
resting in silence and in peace and love.
This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He
is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny Voice so readily
obscured, His calls for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and
harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you
still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go
home, and you along with Him.
This Child is your defenselessness, your strength. He
trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers
of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him,
that He Himself might stay and not return again where He does not belong
and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience
has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you,
calling you to let Him go in peace along with you to where He is at home
and you with Him.
When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from
you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind,
then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you
will not resist Him longer. In that instant, He will take you to His
home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at
peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain
that you are at home.
Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to
become a little child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who
comes without defenses, offering only love's messages to those who think
he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls
them friend, and gives His strength to them that they may see He would
be Friend to them. He asks but they protect Him, for His home is far
away, and He will not return to it alone.
Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a
wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would
protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by
defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as
much an alien here as He.
Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits
nothing and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy
without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even
come to you to ask your help in letting Him go home completed and
completely. He has come as does a little child who must beseech his
father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He
asks unceasingly that you return with Him and take illusions as your
gods no more.
You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you
yearn. This is your heart's desire. This is the Voice you hear, and this
the Call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His
home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it
in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is
open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still a moment and
go home with Him, and be at peace a while.