The Forgotten Threshold: A Journal of Arthur MiddletonO'Brien, Edward J. (Edward Joseph)
Religion
The Forgotten Threshold: A Journal of Arthur Middleton
O'Brien, Edward J. (Edward Joseph)
Diaries; Mysticism
By sailboat to P---- and G---- with the silent man, returning with the
stars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and they
followed St. Francis of Assisi as a leader, the captain of the morning
stars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics.
I loved those Chaldean seers to whom God talked directly and wrote His
message upon the stars. I lay prone on the deck looking upwards and
fell into the Divine Ocean slowly. The moon rode serenely to the
southwest, and humanity was with me in the boat. Navigators are now
the only men left wise enough to follow the stars. The sunpath was
Jacob's ladder, and the Aran islanders know its secret when they see
Tir-n'an-Og in the west on calm sunset evenings. The sea had my trust,
eternal through yesterday's experience, and I believe that if faith
and good works required it of me, I could walk softly over it. If the
soul is to control the body, surely spiritual gravity should be able
to overcome material gravity. Certainly it would take more than the
sea to quench my flame, if God made me worthy.
August 22.
I looked down from great heights today on all the little smiling
intimacies. They are like happy babies to me, and my speech should
play with them, if I can ever become worthy of their simplicity. The
rhythm of all music is the systole and diastole of the Sacred Heart,
which is the ebb and flow of an infinite ocean. This is the meaning, I
think, of the old Gaelic rune, _Ri tragadh s'ri lionadh, mar a bha,
mar a tha, mar a bhitheas gu bragh ri traghadh s'ri lionadh_. (The ebb
and the flow, as it was, as it is, as it ever shall be, the ebb and
the flow.) The resolute gaze of the soul toward this in love
constitutes prayer in its only form. It shows blood to be the most
rich and beautiful of human things, and its salt waves purify the
flesh, as the salt waves of Gethsemane and Calvary redeemed the soul
and its singing stars.
August 23.
My life so far has been a word, and not a deed. But the world was not
redeemed until the Word BECAME FLESH--AND DWELT AMONGST US. Mary S----
met us on the roads today and said, "I hope that we'll be meeting in
Heaven, we seem to meet so often now." I sleep at night in a cruciform
position adoring beauty with every faculty save my will, the most
necessary of all.
August 24.
In the open today amid a hurricane of wind ... I walked with a
childish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showers
of beauty to the body. It rained grace in the sky of noon.
I could carry overflowing happiness now even to New York. Today
reminded me of the sunlight on the roar of Broadway. God is on the
wind tonight, and is beating down my will with his wings.
August 25.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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