IV — When “Nighthood” Is In Flower
For those who know they are beloved of the Father and the Son Apparent, “night” at last is over, the night of worry, suffering, sickness, lack, regret. In His Grace they see and trust.
Yet paradoxically still ’tis nighttime when they see to trust. That nighttime is the dim and quiet hour of the soul’s communion secret; ’tis the silence in the mind and heart withdrawn from all that’s outer, as in the “stillness multiplied by these still forms on every side,” (John Greenleaf Whittier) they wait to hear His “voice.” ’Tis when they’re looking past appearances, looking straight to highest heights of the Most High that they behold the glory now in them of the ascended Lord. Then, willing to see High, they behold His lovely nighttime flower: His perfect Will to Grace.
Then quiet here, we see appear
The flower of moon-gleam.
We want “the sun and moon and stars” as often we’ve heard people say? Very well, we have within us their most vital essence, something so much easier to handle, so much easier to face: the Sun and Moon and Stars of Grace.
The Sun (Son) of perfect Understanding is our ascended Lord. The Moon is our Will to know and to “reflect” or to express His shining consciousness. The Stars, five-pointed, are our five senses, with which we are in contact with the earth of formed and visible conditions. In the firmament (firm mind of Holy Spirit faith) these Stars come out and shine with Apparent Sonlight knowledge that our earth is “good and very good” even as is heaven. They have been renewed by His transforming mind. They glitter and they scintillate; and each a “morning star” that shines throughout the day, a morning star of Grace.
They shine and light our world and show it now to be a very lovely place, because our moon, our will, has been to know the Sun (Son) Apparent and to express His love.
Then do we find our own true place on our earth
As we are, and always have been, in our home in heaven.
Then do we see no longer darkly but now “face to face.”
Then do we hold most frmly the sparkling irridescence
Of the kingdom’s master key of Grace.
Then do we, conscious that we are beloved,
Know His fullest Grace,
The joy of living flowering manifest in all of life
On every side, in every case.
The palest, pristine whiteness of the Flower of the Moon
Takes on the sparkling gold of Sun (Son) Apparent
And soon there is the color-glory of all flowers
Multiplied from this white form on every side—
The Bread of Heaven “broken” into all true blessings
Visible and tangible,
As the beloved now desire them.
Truly is the Moon the Queen of Heaven,
The Princess of the Night,
Yet incomplete without her King, the Sun (Son) Apparent.
In quiet prayer and stillness she must commune with Him,
The Will with Understanding close ally,
So that the soul is lighted and empowered
Perfectly to manifest His Grace.
At this time of the still and quiet hour,
’Tis not for the beloved of the Father and the Son Apparent
To see with outer look
The Son Apparent’s golden strong Sun (Son) power,
Nor even to be thinking of every star in place.
The Moon now rules our sky—’a disc of white, ecstatic light”—
Through her the Sun (Son) we face.
All her beam of willing first our soul must lace.
After we have served her,
Willed to know the Sun (Son) Apparent truth,
Then we are most ready, oh we are most steady,
On earth to be the Sun (Son) and settle in its place
Every star within us, every sense that links us to the outer,
As the Sun (Son) and Star of Grace.
Our “nighthood” is in flower.
In the Grace-full twinkling of our “I” we are indeed all changed from being “poor, weak sinners” to dwellers in the four-square City, ’round His throne of Grace.
Is this too high for the “fools we mortals be” to aspire to and subscribe? Is it too other worldly when in the world around us peace “languishes and dies”? How else can peace come to us and then express forth through us save in our knowing Him who’s vanquished now forever the “father of all lies?” How else can others quickly see Him, save as we forth show Him, we who claim to be His Christians, we who in His Name must rise? How can the world have peace save as we can find the Comforter in us and give to fellow men the “stuff,” the Holy consciousness of peace evident as peaceful, loving words and actions, out of which alone peace visible is made? How else can we draw others to discover and to manifest His Grace?
Is this too high for the “fools we mortals be” to aspire to and subscribe?
Of our human selves, the answer must be yes; but in His Will within us, indeed it is not so. This Moon is for our reaching, the Sun and Stars all so (good visible on earth); and to the Stars intuitively we all do ceaselessly incline.
“It is better,” so frequently we’ve heard, “at the stars to aim, and hit the fence-post, than to make our aim the fence-post and (we knew it!) hit the ground.”
Yes, it is better, if that be all our “virtue” at this time—to take aim at and miss the stars. Yet shall we not will Virtue from the transcendent Name of Names in us? Then with the Master’s diamond arrow, His all surpassing love, we shall take aim and score the Star of Stars—the Gracious joy of living free from fears and wars—as we have already scored the Sun and Moon, His Apparent Sonlight from His Will to Grace.
The Understanding that is Sun (Son) Apparent, the Will to “reflect” or to express this Light, the Moon, and the triumphant living of them both through us, the Stars, shall be our galaxy of Glory, the constellation of the King, the milk and honey of the Way, the sparkling Diadem of truth, the Crown that in His Name is ours, for we shall have found, in Him who is in us, that master key to every kingdom: Grace.
So easy lies the head that wears this Crown.
Grace is a lovely thing, “God wot,” and in its luminescence un-blessedness is not.
“Yea verily,” it is a sparkling thing—of Moonlight and the Sunlight and of the Starshine too. Thy faith in us, O Lord of Lords, hath made us whole.
God helps those, most perfectly, who help themselves to God through Grace.
In its white brightness now indeed we see:
Myriads bloom at noon;
We know now how, that only Thou
Art Flower of the Moon.
The will precedes the man (man-I-festation).
“I will to be the Son Apparent.”
“Sweet mystery of life, as last I’ve found thee.”?
No. Deep Mystery of Life, at last we’ve solved Thee, in His Name of Grace.
"Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within.”
"A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.”?
The Hand of the ascended Lord that now rules heaven (and earth where men ... accept His sovereignty) has no need for showing pity—for who needs pity in a realm of joy? Or who should weep where night is gone forever? (If tears could flow in heaven it would be no longer heaven.) His Hands “have no tears to flow”—we thank Thee, Father.
I am greater than I have thought; for His Name is in me.
And so our benediction,
The Love of God,
The Grace of our Lord, Christ Jesus,
And the Comforter Fellowship of the Holy Ghost,
be with you all, and remain with you all, now and forever, dearly beloved of the Father and the Son Apparent, everywhere.
© 1947, Crichton Russ Boatwright
