Angels Walking in the Street and Divine Beings at the State Street Diner: A Mystic’s Journal: October 25 - 31, 2007
Thursday, October 25
An e-mail from the reviewer at Body, Mind, Spirit magazine. He has begun to read Realms of Light:
“Wonderful ...your actual experience...accessible and inspirational, even to "beginners" ... You'll be receiving a glowing endorsement.”
That was good news.
Sunday, October 28
A sad e-mail from dear Father N. today:
“Sunday I will go to another church which is offering its final Mass. So many Churches in the
__________ Diocese are closing and it is sad. As I told my parishioners at our last Mass, the 75% of people who do not regularly attend Sunday Mass could have made a difference, but they were not there. What do we need to do, or what must God do to get them to pay attention?”
I immediately wrote him back:
Good afternoon dear Father!
To close a Church is a terrible thing. Even if a Church is empty of people, the Tabernacle is there, God is within. Angels ... Priests and nuns .... Mass is said ... As people pass the building, they benefit. And if nothing else, they are given a reminder of God. The town or city benefits, that country - the entire world is Blessed.
But I will tell you something else dear Father:
When in my early thirties, I seldom went into a Church or to Mass. One warm autumn evening I was walking my two dogs, Dominique and Guinivere, past the Catholic Church, as I often did - and as I rounded the corner I saw countless angels and saints filling THE ENTIRE STREET!!! Mass had just ended, people were pouring out the front doors of the Church. The angels and saints had left the Church before the people had, and they were still milling around and walking south. Intrigued and filled with wonder, I asked someone what the Mass was - for it was at an unusual day and time for a Mass. And I was told that it was the Feast Day of all the Saints, All Saints Day.
Yes, I agree: Prayer is the answer. Perhaps the only answer - save our unending personal efforts to rebuild the Church on Earth. Those personal efforts are the greatest form of Prayer dear Father, and you are very Blessed to be a priest in these most difficult times.
Saturday, October 27
An e-mail from a friend at Authorsden. She had a bit of trouble understanding the last Mystic’s Journal entry that I posted, on the Eight Verses on Training The Mind by Langri Thangpa.
I answered:
“Yes, we are not the thoughts or the emotions - we are the soul (or pure Consciousness in the Tibetan framework). That is the essence of that entry. We have thoughts and emotions - but we are not them. We are something eternal and sacred - we are beings of radiant Light and in some mysterious way directly connected to God.
When hurtful words or thoughts come towards us it is essential to let them pass harmlessly through us - nothing from others can hurt the soul save our own thoughts and actions in return.
But to do this exercise, we must remember that we are the soul.”
Tuesday, October 30
Diana and I started the Interviews for Realms of Light last night, not long before midnight. In the past, we have used the music studio in back of our house for our interviews, but the studio’s pilot light had blown out and it was too cold a night to be there without heat. The main house does not have separate rooms downstairs, and voices easily carry upstairs - so as not to disturb M., we went to the State Street diner which is open twenty four hours a day. The State Street diner is a classic American diner, it could be out of a movie set - and we first stood outside for some moments, pumpkins and a huge plastic ghost looking back at us through the diner windows. Diana has less than a week left in Ithaca and there is much still left to be done. We decided to give it a try.
So the initial Interviews for Realms of Light were done with Rock and Roll playing on the radio, a gaggle of college students at a birthday party, our surly waitress coming and going, the clatter of plates and silverware and the general clutter of the diner and its stray customers and waitresses all around us. Diana attached her lav microphone to the creamer the waitress brought for our decaffeinated coffee, set up her Sony mini disc recorder, ordered blueberry pancakes - and we began.
We stayed until after two a.m., half- heard the Beatles’ “Love Me Dude” and Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and endless other vintage rock tunes - and finished more than half the Interview. I found Diana’s questions probing and interesting, valuable. She asked questions about my meetings with Paul Brunton and the Dalai Lama, about my relationship with my Teacher John Payne, my experiences in other realms, what I meant by “standing in the spiritual Heart” - and as we spoke, our corner of the diner became filled with Divine Love and Divine beings.
By the time we left, the entire diner was filled with Divine Love. On the way home I told Diana that Christ once told Saint Teresa of Avila that whenever she spoke about Him with someone else - He would be there.
Looking around the diner as we left: as my meditation and philosophy Teacher, Anthony Damiani, often said: Life is our monastery.
Wednesday, October 31
Toying with the idea of deleting the Appendix, the FAQ section of Realms of Light, from the book and putting it online instead. Diana is still negotiating with the publisher over margins and her graphics. Finished the Interviews late last night, at Friendly’s, over an ice cream soda.