The New Butterfly & The Sound of the Seventh Angel... (The beginning of "a little book, open . . .")

A NEW BUTTERFLY had appeared in the midst of the garden. It had never been seen before. It was beautiful beyond description. Full of life and joy, and such, lifting liberty that it seemed it could take you with it everywhere, and through anything. It was like no other butterfly! The sight of its lovely sparkling-opal wings, shimmering in the early morning sunlight brought gasps of delight to the children; and they danced in the middle of the garden like little butterflies themselves, newly escaped of their cocoon. Tender hearts overflowed with boundless joy . . .

   The butterfly alighted upon the shoulder of one of the smallest children then flew onto his hand. Even from the first moment of its appearance he had loved it: and the child remained perfectly still, beneath the green willows, lying amongst the wild flowers of the meadow; his feet dipped in the flowing stream.

   Rewarded for his stillness, time melted away as he gazed and gazed upon the beautiful butterfly, shining with life and light on his hand. It swept him up and renewed his whole being and he followed the living butterfly whithersoever it flew....

   Oh, how all the children longed to share this wonderful new freedom that the butterfly had brought them . . . even a new way of living! A whole new way of seeing! Then some of the older and wiser ones reasoned amongst themselves as to how they should do this.

  They came to the conclusion, that if they could just catch the butterfly then they could pass it around to their friends, so that they all might share in this wonderful new joy together.

  Their idea seemed good to them, so they did it.

 They caught the elusive airborne butterfly dancing and shimmering in the warm morning sunlight . . .

   They pierced it with a pin. Then they stuck it on a piece of paper. How eagerly they anticipated the delight their friends would have when they saw it.

  So they laid out the pierced butterfly, decently and in order, just as the entomology textbook had taught them. Then they carefully placed it in a box. They were thrilled with it. Here was proof! Now at last all their friends would be able to study it for themselves and find out, all about it, and learn of the glorious new life of the butterfly and come and join them in the garden. They passed the box around expectantly!

           So shadows come . . .

                                   And the glory fades.

  While some saw nothing but a decaying, common garden, Cabbage White, and thought their friends had quite lost their senses: these lived on the outskirts of the garden, others did see a beautiful butterfly and became fascinated with its exquisite markings.

  They spent much time, many a happy hour examining it with magnifying glasses, making careful notes of the detailed patterns on its wings, and then comparing them with the textbook.

   They uncovered many amazing things about this magnificent butterfly. They found exciting and extraordinary evidences of new life, encoded in its lovely markings, which they were most earnest and diligent to teach to one another. Those whose interests and passions seemed similar gathered themselves together in separate groups in the garden.

  Oh, the myriads of messages and fascinating things to learn! They took great delight in these things. With them, they were fulfilled and content. Although, there never seemed to be quite enough and their search for more was endless.  

              So shadows came . . .

                                      And the glory faded.

  Then one of the smallest children, who lived in the centre of the garden, came and looked at the dead butterfly in the box.

  ‘What have you done?’ he cried, as he held the lifeless thing in his hand; and he threw it down to the ground and groaned in brokenness of heart.

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                          The Sound of the Seventh Angel  

   

THE LORD GOD made himself a house. And the pattern of the house he gave to men and they built it; and the way men lived with the LORD GOD was the pattern of it: that he might show them, each one, where they were: where they dwelt in it.

  And he gave him who had the right of rule over it, to rule it, as all flesh was one with him, the light of lights. And his rule was one of great benevolence, for whatsoever they desired they were given, till it seemed there was nothing missing of all they could ever think of, to hope for. For the house was filled with the source of all man’s desire: a beautiful fragrance of incense was there, the hope of selfless love; and the light of a golden candlestick was in it, the hope of godly understanding; and fresh bread was always to be seen upon its table, the hope of the knowledge of God.

  And the incense was as the form of love and worship, the heart’s own desire before the unknown place, and the nearest one could come to it. And the candlestick was as the form of a tree, and its light, the knowledge of the light of lights; the light which appealed and gave one standing. And the bread was as the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law; good to build one up and increase one’s stature in the sight of God and man.

  And from age to age, from generation to generation, the bread, and the light, and the incense in the house increased and multiplied so as it knew no bounds. It gave them above and beyond all they needed; though the words of it were shut up and the book sealed: for the understanding of it was in quite a different house. And the light of love and of the source of knowledge of the truth in the law grew and grew, until there were so many books written about the book that they filled the entire world; even to the time of the end when all things are revealed: when many run to and fro, and knowledge, increased to such an extent that the speed of it outdistanced thought; happening in less time than a man could think of it; and there was no longer anything that was impossible to them.

  And it was so, that when men were at their greatest ease, the voice of the seventh angel began to sound: for the mystery of God was finished; time no longer; and they all awoke and began to hear. But none could enter in, not having a wedding garment, nor oil for their lamps: for they had whereof to boast in all their fine garments of righteousness, and their marvellous lamps filled with all the oil of the light of lights. And they could not enter in to the marriage.

  Not one in the first house could enter in; they were shut out for all their abundance; for they were rich and increased with goods so that they had need of nothing, and knew not that they were wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, for all their wealth.

  And they that had bought the things which were good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, things to be desired to make one wise were rewarded in kind. They reaped of the flesh and of the soul, that which was of, the flesh and the soul: they had earned the ‘things which are;’ not ‘things which are not;’ for all are repaid in their own coinage. And nothing, of the things which are, can help a man enter in. 

   And the veil over their eyes is removed, and they see, for an instant, them that had walked in the fire that was the second house. They saw those who had entered in with the bridegroom beyond the second veil whom they did not recognize. For, were they not those whom they had numbered among the transgressors; who, being not of them had left them: cast out by the SPIRIT OF THE LORD, and taken. Led by him, in spirit, in the light of life by the fire of decreasing, and the cloud of not-knowing, and the hidden airy bread of the dew of heaven, milk and honey. ...Those, which unbeknownst to the first house, walked free and invisibly with the beloved in all the world: the second house; for they had inherited the earth. Those who had left the shadow for the substance: the poor in spirit, who have nothing, and who know nothing but him, alone; and who suffer his reproach without the camp, where they dwell with him in his own glorious light in the second house; whose light is as pitch-darkness to men.

  And he sent forth his angels, and they come, gathering out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; casting them into a furnace of fire. And the reapers, beginning to reap, are gathering in first, the tares. And in finding them in groups, binding them in bundles to burn them; and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth: for those of the first house thought that they had access to everywhere in God’s house, and so it was a shock to them to find that they were all bound together in the wrong house - the old house - the first house, and that they were not in the second house, at all; which now is revealed to them.

  It had not occurred to them that there was another house, altogether different, and that it had been kept from them, because they had thought that they were in it already. For the light of lights who had led them was the light that was not light: the imitation of Christ: the imitation of the light: the light that was of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which could not in any wise enter in the holiest of all: the second house.

  And, in the twinkling of an eye, they are given to see, and understand, that they had been led in endless circles of never ending knowledge: ever learning never able to come to the knowledge of the truth: never finishing never entering rest: and in no rest no entering in; and so, centred around their needs in him, they were bound to themselves in bundles glorying in men.

  And not until the first house, is fallen, is the second house, made manifest . . .

  ‘The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing.’

  And the second house they saw as a most terrible house; a habitation in the LORD GOD made entirely of fire that took everything from them.

  But to those people they saw walking around in it, it seemed as if it was the most pleasant place of all: for each one was filled joy, roaming free in losing all: unfettered boundless in the glorious liberty which was within the terrible fiery light, that burned up all the light that was not light, taking away the things that are, for things which are not: that no flesh should glory in his presence.

  And so afraid were the people of the first house at the destruction of all they held, dear, that they could no longer hold on to, or bear sight of the new, the second house; and the light of the knowledge of it was taken from them that they might receive their own reward.

  And soon it was that that losing which they could not reach, nor attain, they belittled and despised: thus blinding and binding themselves yet further to the old; which, though it was now, exposed, cast down, and fallen, they still clung to, and so burned with it; and great was the fall of Babylon; and the smoke of her burning was seen afar off . . . 

  ‘For every man’s work shall be made manifest: the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is;’ of what substance, of what coinage; whether it is that of the first house, or that of the second?

  And nothing of the first house would fit in the second.

  For just as a bird, flies in air, and a fish, swims in water, so are the two houses in two different realms; and their inhabitants not able to breathe in that house which was not their own.

  And the door that was the veil between the two realms was death to one and life to the other. And none could enter in, in any other way than through the door; and in taking nothing with one, even as by death heaven is entered . . .  

   . . . narrow as the confines of his own body, lonely as his own pain, dark as his own ignorance in dependence upon his Father: piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit; and his way, his own, cannot be shared with another.

And the light -- in soul --

The first house --

Is the tree of the knowledge of good

and evil:

Knowledge about him in gaining:

The light without.         (...Visible)  


...The abundant godly knowledge the flood of water cast out of the serpent’s mouth, that he might cause her to be carried away of it;  even as in the Garden.

And the light -- in spirit --

The second house --

Is the tree of life:

Revelation in him in losing:

The light within.         (...Invisible)

Knowing him more

by knowing about him less:

he must increase, but I decrease. . . .

And unto them that look for him

shall he appear the second time. 





             The Light Within

 

THE ENTIRE HOUSE is a picture of man: body, soul, and spirit, and the three different levels of his relationship to God.

  The second house has no window: no natural light, and has no lamp, nor candle: to demonstrate the truth that the spirit of man is darkness; and that only God can illumine his spirit: for the only true light is the Lord Jesus, himself: ‘God IS light:’ if a man has not JESUS within him he has no light.

  Only Jesus’ life in man’s spirit is light; no other light than Jesus, himself, can penetrate the spirit of man; and that, that he might illumine the man to himself -- show him his own darkness: -- revealing the man to himself in the mirror of the inexorable beauty of Jesus, who is that fearsome light which is the fire within a man: to conform him to the utterly impossible image of Christ -- within -- and on and on throughout his life, until he realizes that he is absolutely corrupt, through and through, and has no life in or of himself but what he has of Jesus on the inside in his spirit. 

  The spirit of man has no light except that one beam of light which is Jesus. ...It is the beam within which is so unspeakably precious, even though without it the wretchedness of self-loathing would be a thing unknown. And only does he realize how precious and beautiful that loathing is when he welcomes the light as his only hope of deliverance and salvation from himself -- until the hating of his own life is consumed in Jesus in utter love and God is all in all in him.  (Luke 14: 26;  Jeremiah 17: 9)

  God in Christ shows the man to himself -- as he really is -- as he is beneath the surface -- for the entire spirit of every person is iniquity and darkness until made light. And God does this piercing illumining only in the second house: only in the spirit of a man. And he does so until he has entered his spirit to the degree that he has purposed; for it is God, himself, who brings each one to that ‘mansion’ in his Father’s house that he chose for him before the foundation of the world; that, where he is, there we may be, also.  

Therefore, all ‘light’ which is not the beam within is not light.  It is ‘light,’ falsely, so called, and it works against the true light, blinding the man to himself with knowledge about.   

  All who abide in the first house are still lost to Jesus: keeping him out of their innermost being terrified of being found out there; but, only there, are they changed.

 It is the light within that changes us. We see ourselves reflected in the ray of light which is his utter beauty and in that flash of true sight of our own wretchedness fall at his feet, slain, till we are transformed, within, by his blood.    

  

  Therefore, if it is the light within which changes us, why then do we keep hiding from him, in, and by, our knowledge gathering?

  We hide from the light, which exposes us to our own selves, because we are darkness and we do not want to be found out!

In our soul…we are enjoying the shadow: the ‘light which is not light:’ i.e. knowledge about him, and about his work in us; all the while, in our spirit…we are hiding from the reality and the substance of him in hiding from our real selves!

  Each person is one body, one house, with two rooms: a soul and a spirit; and the two, war and lust against each other for supremacy, inside us, inside every one of us; even as the twins in Rebekah’s womb, who were a symbol of it.   

  JESUS did not need to die, for us to enjoy the light of knowledge in our ‘streets:’ in our mind, (our soul,) we can do that very well without him; but our knowledge is about as useful in the darkness as a lantern with no light in it; he doesn’t speak there: he doesn’t teach in our ‘streets.’ ‘NEITHER SHALL ANY MAN HEAR HIS VOICE IN THE STREETS.’ (Mat. 12: 19; Lu. 13: 26)

What we had heard in the searching channels of our mind, in the lanes and byways of our soul was not, him -- his life, come in our flesh, but the imitation, by the voice of the serpent in us, who deceives the whole world.

   And when we shall begin to say to him, but ‘We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in....’ not, in our spirit, but ‘in our streets;’ where it is not he who teaches. We thought we heard him, but it was the imitation we had heard. And he shall say to us, ‘I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity:’ he does not know us;* because he had not been let in: we loved another. . . . and so our spirit does not confess that he is come in our flesh. . . loving self we had created a false picture of Jesus and worshipped our own image of him. ...We did not know him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, before whom, no man can stand that there be any breath left in him.

*It is only as he knows me that I know him: THEN SHALL I KNOW EVEN AS ALSO I AM KNOWN.                (1 Corinthians 13: 12)  

...We had made him according to our own understanding, in our own image, in our own likeness; and the whole world glitters with the false gold of our beautiful idol, to whom we delight to bow down and at the merest hint of his music. ...It is the most magnificent deceit; the greatest deception of all time.    

  JESUS didn’t need to die, for us to hear ‘him’ in our ‘streets:’ the holy place within the temple of God in man; he died that we might enter the holiest of all: our dark sinful heart, (our spirit,) that he might enter us, there, know us there, in spirit: for God is spirit and the only light there is HIM, himself!

 ...He is altogether other!  He is utterly as darkness to us: being altogether other than we are. 

...We say we know him, but we do not; neither are we saved: ‘for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.’

           * 

A CIRCLE OF SWIFT SONGS: a spiritual allegory

                 

     In writing THE BUTTERFLY STORY I had glimpsed that one way to enter Life! was by a sort of ‘not-doing:’ in simple surrender and rest; but that there could be another way, which was by virtually doing the opposite, and that it could be good, too, I had not been able to bear; for I had crossed over, so completely and any method of acquiring wisdom and knowledge which was by human effort I had long ago learned to abandon within me. But, after a long while of more dying to self and waiting, I was given in a waking dream the hint of a greater truth which I had not previously glimpsed. I was about to discover a deeper level to seeing and perceiving truth; and a greater, or more true dimension of love and peace in which all the sensibilities and giftings of others were fully provided for and there could be no cause for offence. 

                                                           

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A Circle of Swift Songs

  TEARS HAD FORMED A POOL. And through them it was as though I was looking from above and seeing down through the clouds. Mountains and beautiful valleys with cascading rivers and areas of dense forest were below. Then appearing in the far distance, amidst a great wooded wilderness, I saw a most beautiful lake. Around its edge were natural grassy places; flower-filled meadows, the haunt of fallow deer and forest creatures which came there to drink. But in one place the lake was bordered by the sheer rock wall of a great high cliff.

    It was very still. Not a breath of wind. The surface of the lake was smooth and clear and shining as glass. It was all was so quiet there breathed a sense of eternity.  Or as if time itself stood still, while angels watched.  

    Suddenly, a Stone is dropped, and from a great height. It plunges into the still water. From its fall, a vortex is caused in the centre of the lake, a hole greater than the size of the Stone and a huge fountain of water shoots skyward in the upheaval. The waves caused around it swell huge at first, then grow successively smaller and smaller as the ripples extend on and on; until, imperceptibly, they reach the very shores of the lake.

 So clearly did I see this all happening that it seemed to take a very long time to happen? I don’t know. It is hard to explain in words. But it seemed as though I was seeing everything in slow motion, for every detail is precise in my memory.

    It was only a dream. A fleeting waking vision. But I remembered it vividly, and I wondered what it meant. As I pondered, I saw again the fall of the Stone. It was the Central Thing: the Stone of Stumbling and the Rock of Offence. Then I recalled the circles of the waves, slowly decreasing to become ripples, until they were so small I could hardly notice them. As I weighed these things in my heart I drew closer, and after a moment I heard the following words rise from within me; they were not audible words just a silent knowing of something I did not know.

         A circle of swift songs: 

         The melody of degrees;  

         Fairly apportioned the glory

         Of the kingdom of heaven

    Then as I listened there was an opening in a once shut place, and I could see something of the meaning of the dream. I suddenly realized it spoke as an answering picture-story to the pain I was dealing with in my innermost being: the pain of being rejected for speaking the truth that no one wanted to hear. Then the picture unravelled . . .

   The ripples, they had had no meeting place! In that pattern of concentric circles, not one touched; not one wave or ripple, met!  There was no link between them. No bridge. Though they followed one after the other in perfect pattern, they never touched. They had no direct interaction with one another though they came from the same source and the same power moved them. ...For a moment I was devastated. All my longings dashed to pieces! No one would hear me who wasn't in the same ripple as me! I was separated from others! Alone! I really was…all alone! A sense of grief manifested in the centre of my being, and a sob rose up and came out of me; and for a moment I cried.

   And then Love stooped, and spoke. Love bent down, and looked upon me; and said, ‘I have made it so.’ My response a baby’s tears; and I just cried some more. But then the glint of a dawning:  ‘It was meant to be that way...?’ and I marvelled. As usual my natural, first-sight arose next, to steal away my dawn, and cloud my insight over, as my own thinking always does. ‘Oh, but why did you make it so? Surely, that can’t be! It is, too, cruel!’

    Clasped of such earthly thoughts the pain increased, and to breaking point. Yet, Love’s grip was stronger. I yielded. Trusting completely to Love’s own goodness I looked upon this given ‘picture-story,’ the second time; and wondered at the incomprehensible wisdom so black and dark as night to me. Immediately there came a greater dawning: ‘And it was made, for the extension of the glory of the kingdom of heaven; to which is no end, either way.’ Then I saw it all clear and bright as day!

   Every ripple received what he gave it. And all that he gave it was what it had. The power in the falling Stone was in each circling ripple the exact amount of power that he intended it to have. There everyone in that particular ‘ripple’ had all things in common! They had a kind of kindred fellowship one with another: ‘they talked the same language!’ Rarely did they grossly irritate or offend one another. They couldn’t. Their light, their knowledge, was equal.  So there were no micro-explosions of revelatory light by paradox by the interaction of opposites, to rattle them and embarrass them, and unnerve them, with too much light . . . too much glory, which was beyond them, and which could only make them burst, and spoil, and make them blind! ...New wine in old wine bottles; it doesn’t work! It harms. 

     It seemed this design of un-linked concentric ripples was a picture of how God chose to distribute his glory once it had entered the world; that it might be seen, and examined, and delighted in – in each degree that he gave it. ...I saw that in each was a potential for fullness, for all kinds of personal discovery, and peace: each having its own swift song: its own allotted glory to delight in, which could abundantly satisfy! 

      ‘And who are you to say which ripple is best?’

    

     My own heart smote me! To think that I had thought that I should be able to reach across the ripples, to swamp others with what I had, and put upon them my passionate desire that they should have what I had, regardless! Oh, I ran to Love’s ever present arms. There came my blessing: the loving rebuke and chastening which I ever embraced, and cherished;  for without it I could only be left behind; blind, clouded, lost in a wilderness of my own imperfect judgment, and my own stubbornly held onto opinions! Opened to the core, and out from the depths of me, my broken heart spoke and in Love’s own voice...

   ‘How do you know which ripple is best for each person? Do you know my thoughts, or my purpose in each ripple? Who are you? Don’t you know that I can give my glory, which I wish for all my children to delight in, within the faintest ripple as much as in the greatest wave of the upheaval? If I will that those who delight in the merest hint of my glory are to do so because it pleases me, does it not please you? Who are you? My glory is so great that the least touch of it upon man’s spirit is without end. And unto the smallest degree of it shall I cause it to fulfill their joy and my purpose within them unto whom I give it. If I wish to give to the least as much as I give unto the greatest, what is that to you? Follow me.’ 

    The first ripple reached the shore first; but though this first swift circle of a falling Stone is the most tumultuous and suffers the most upheaval, he gives as much to this least as to the greatest for it becomes the least, first; and so on. It was a profound paradox! And I did not think that I understood it. Then to my mind there came this: ‘There was the one which was the beloved; there was the three; there was the twelve; there was the seventy; and there was the five hundred; and there was the multitude; and the whole world.’ But I saw that all were beloved, whatever I thought; for all were given all they could hold; and all they could hold was all they desired! Enter peace; and love! And smitten, knowing I knew nothing, I fell softly. And, mercy, kissed with truth, I landed in Love’s own embrace.

   A circle of swift songs: the melody of degrees; fairly apportioned the glory of the kingdom of heaven.

                                                     

  

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