You Do Not Choose to Speak; You Become the Word
Chesed of Hod Day 29 of 50 · Lovingkindness within Splendor
The Generous Witness- Seeing with Love
The twenty-ninth saying of the Living Christ:
Do not let the flash of what you see blind you to the truth of what is. When you behold a wonder, do not chase it; sit with it. Allow it to open you up and yield the secrets hidden in its heart. If you rush to tell everyone, your words will become muddled, and they will not grasp the truth you carry. Take care, lest your craving for the miracle crowds out the Holy One who works it. Those who wander through the wilderness seeking miracles are blind to the miracles around them all the time. The witness who speaks too soon gives the world noise, but the one who waits gives the world light.
Do not let your witness collapse into nothing but doubts and reckonings. While it is good to bring your attention to the wonders you see, wonder is choked when it is scrutinized without ever allowing yourself to feel it. If your attention sharpens into the coldness of the eye, cut off from the work of the heart, then you will miss so much beauty that exists in this world. When the eye seeks only to judge and to categorize, the heart loses the power to be filled. A true witness does not bring a report; they bring a gift offered in love.
Offer your witness as a holy thing.
Contemplative beholding is the loving gaze before you have spoken a word. When Mary saw me in the gray hours of the morning, walking beyond the tomb, she was present and open. Her mind was empty of answers, yet she did not turn away. We beheld one another in our truest, deepest way. She beheld and took in the glory of the words I spoke to her. Only when the dawn broke in her mind and she understood that I still lived did she run to the apostles to tell them.
Testimony is born from reverence, not urgency. The witness does not rush out to proclaim the glories that they have seen. They are filled with the sight and sit with it, receiving it until it is finished. Loving kindness opens their hearts, and they see what is truly there and what has become possible.
The root of all testimony is the ability to receive goodness and beauty as it is, with an open and generous attention. Only then can the heart know what it means. Once the meaning is revealed, the path reveals itself. Do not force the word before the fruit is ripe.
See as an act of love before you begin to speak.
Settle into the root of your testimony. Repair your hearts by learning to receive what you see with generosity before you try to tell others about it. A wonder half-formed in the soul cannot be expressed even slightly by the mouth.
When you learn to be whole before you speak, you heal your witness. Love comes before interpretation. The world is not healed by those who report the light, but by those who have been set ablaze by it. When you are filled with wonder, you do not choose to speak; you become the word.
The truest testimony begins in wonder, not in words.
Matthew Fox calls it 1+1=3: one tradition meeting one life makes a third thing no one expected. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that third thing and an invitation to find yours.
