The Whisper that Calls Us to Taste the Infinite

"Think of an instant when you knew you were at one with life, when you stood at the edge of the reality you knew - and saw you'd been given a taste of the infinite!"-Anne Hillman

Pain is like a sedative, it keeps us locked in that moment, in those memories. It is so difficult to stand up and move out of the pain. Isn’t this the roller coaster of the human condition? What if we can find another moment to counter act the sedation that can possibly move us through the pain.

I wonder about these things especially when you see another locked in their own pain.... I wonder if there is away to remember .... Who you are!!

Jacob in Genesis 28 left his father to go find a wife. I don’t know the details of the story but just that his father didn’t want him to marry a Canaanite woman. I wonder what was going on in Jacob’s head, was he in turmoil about his father’s wishes, I don’t know, but he was human, so maybe! At a certain place in the journey, he took a rock as a pillow and went to sleep. He dreamed of a stairway resting on the ground, with the top of the stairway reaching into heaven, angels were going up and down the stairway. “God” spoke to him, promising never to leave him. When he woke up, he poured oil over the stone and essentially made a monument as a reminder of the promise of “God”. I wonder how many times in his journey did he think about that perfect moment. Did that moment get him through the hard times he experienced? I have this sense that as he stood at the edge of his reality he was profoundly changed and in that moment was given a taste of the Infinite.

When I read that sentence by Anne Hillman, I had to stop my daily business and ask myself if I have ever experience that moment. Yes, I have but life makes you forget these moments and like Jacob, I want to make my moments a monument of remembrance, so when I feel I am not loved, I can look with gratitude to the monument I have built and know who I am; to know that I am loved. Who I am is beyond my name, my story and my personality but who I am is... me in that moment when I tasted the Infinite.

Imagine you are sitting under a rustic shelter, with dusty floors, your chair is part of an old tree stump that is dry and grey from years of weathering. Sticking out of your sandals are toes covered with dusty dry brown earth. You wait expectantly but you have no idea what you are in for, but you can sense that this is a moment and you are expectantly attuned to what is going to happen. All of a sudden, three silent giants approach the small make shift shelter. The instant you see them you are jolted to awareness of their presence, so aware that it takes your breath away and you are transported into the present moment, where nothing bothers you, whatever thoughts you have are of no consequence, you are magnetically drawn into the silence and presences of beauty, and strength. They make no sound, as they walk up to the enclosure and obediently take there place in front of the rickity shelter. To try explain the enormity of this moment, words fail, but as I type these words, my body and brain are drawn back to the memory and I feel the presence, and the awe. The storyteller stands up and with his back to the elephant he explains the suffering they endured by the hands of man, as babies how they lost their family when hunters broke into their camp in the stillness of night, what they must have experienced when the gun fire broke out, in the confusion they ran into the bush, safe but traumatized. As the story was told, tears ran down my cheeks. I looked into their eyes and was pulled into their presence, their willingness to trust man. Being drawn into that moment, I stepped out of my reality and I tasted the Infinite in these giant beasts. I wish this moment never ended, because the me that I hold on to totally disappeared, there was no beginning and no end of me, I was me, beyond my name, my story and my personality, I was in the story of Infinite Love.

Reading Jacob story, I believe that this space is always available to me. I have written down this story in my little black book, along with a few others when I experienced Infinite Love. This space is always there, in moments of pain, turmoil and unease I just turn into the story, and the taste the Infinite is there. In that moment I know that I am loved, I am love.

I would like to ask you, do you have a story? Where you knew, that you knew you stood at the edge of your own reality and the veil opened up and you tasted the Infinite?

Bibliography

Hillman, A. (2016). Awakening the Energies of Love. Bramble Books.