
Worlds
swarm around You, like bees around a cherry tree in blossom. One world
pushes the other aside; one contests the patrimony of the other; one looks
upon the other as an intruder in his home. All claim a greater right to You
than You Yourself do.
From
the effusion of Your fullness swarms are nourished, O inexhaustible Sweetness.
All overeat, and all go away hungry.
Of
all the swarms the human swarm leaves the most hungry. Not because You did not
have food for men, O Master, but because they fail to recognize their
nourishment, and so they contend with caterpillars for the same foliage.
Before
all creatures, and before all time and sorrow. You, O Lord, formed man in Your
heart. You conceived of man first, even though You manifested him last in the
rosaries of creation - even as a gardener thinks about the blooming of a rose
all the time he is digging and planting the dry rose stems - even as a builder
experiences the joy of the domes while planning a church, even though he
builds them last.
You
gave birth to man in Your heart, before You began creating.
Help
my mortal tongue to name this man, this radiance of Your glory, this song of
Your blessedness. Should I call him the Ultimate Man? For just as He was
contained in Your heart, so also was all the manifested world, including man
and the heralds of man, contained in His mind.
And
no one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except
the Father.1 You were like nirvana," O Lord, until the Son was
conceived within You, You were without number or name.
How
shall I magnify You in the midst of a swarm of hungry caterpillars, which one
wind blows onto the blossoming cherry tree and another blows off, and whose
entire lifetime is spent between two winds?
O
Lord, my dream day and night, help me to magnify You, so that nothing may become
great in my heart except You.
Let
all creatures magnify You, O Lord, lest they make themselves great instead of
You.
Truly,
You are exceedingly great, O Lord, would that all our hymns could make You
greater!
Even
when all the swarms of insects are blown off the blossoming cherry tree, the
cherry tree remains the same in its majesty and vernal beauty.
0 comments :
Post a Comment