Journal of Sacred Work

Days 188-190 This Chapter “Between Twin Eternities”

Grey study 4 copyright erie chapman 2012   In his work, "The Only Animal" Franz Wright offers many soaring lines. These caught my eye when they were posted by my friend, poet Claire Bateman:

"…between twin eternities,
some sort of wings,
more or less equidistantly
exiled from both,
hovering in the dreaming called
being awake,…"

   There is nothing stranger about your existence than the conundrum called "reality." Time is a trick.

   Before you were born you occupied one kind of consciousness. After your body dies you will occupy another. 

   Meanwhile, your body's consciousness shifts moment to moment – especially when influenced by sleep or anesthesia. 

   Isn't the time you occupy right now also part of eternity – all encapsulated in a single moment? Life is simply a chapter in the endless book of forever.

Sacred encounter   As a caregiver, you walk beside patients who, because of their illnesses, may bump up against one eternity or the other. You can be present in sacred encounters where your love meets their need.

   An acquaintance of mine has been lingering on the edge of death for a couple of weeks now. In this moment, she has left what we call consciousness and lives instead in a nether-land we cannot fathom. Comforted by friends and the magic of hospice care, she will soon enter another one of those "twin eternities."

   We fly on "some sort of wings." As we fly, the best among us take our weakened fellow beings on board and try to lift them from their misery back to a better consciousness. But always we are no more than dreaming we are awake.

   Here is the gift you can give another if you are willing to draw close enough for secrets. It is inside the language Wright uses towards the end of his poem:

"You gave me
in secret one thing
to perceive, the
tall blue starry

strangeness of being
here at all.

You gave us each in secret something to perceive."

-Erie Chapman

Note: The just-released book, Inside Radical Loving Care, is now available on Amazon.

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3 responses to “Days 188-190 This Chapter “Between Twin Eternities””

  1. Cheri Avatar
    Cheri

    C. S. Lewis observed, “There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal.” Every person whose life touches ours is a gift, an eternal gift. It is the mystery Jesus spoke of when he said that loving God is inseparable loving others, the true sense of solidarity that arises from the shared solitude of the heart. We have always been, and always shall be, and when we look with eyes of love we recognize those who are also called His beloved. “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed” (Ps 139:16).

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  2. Beth Hampton Avatar
    Beth Hampton

    “Life is simply a chapter in the book of forever” startles me and throws open the windows on a contracted day. Thank you for this expansive notion

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  3. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    I have witnessed the power of love as a dying person dwells in the in-between space of this world and eternity. Time and again love enables the seeming impossible. A person may hold on beyond the body’s endurance waiting for a loved one to arrive, another until their family member whispers, “it is okay to go” and they breathe their last breath. Love manifests in miracles.
    I appreciate the image with shards of light igniting the darkness and the accompanying poem you offer us, Erie. I’d like to share these two thoughts by Thomas Merton that happened to come my way yesterday and seem to resonate with your lovely message.
    “In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going. In another sense we have already arrived. We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling and in darkness. But we already possess Him/Her by grace, and therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!”
    “At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us… It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish.”

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