The Growing Capacity to
Wear the Three Crowns
This is the last of the Holy Nights for this Inner Christmas. (Tomorrow I will write an Epiphany message framing the portal into the ordinary year.)
Never before have I felt a need to attend to what it means to my inner life that the Holy Nights are at an end. Is this because I wrote so personally about the growing capacity for endings?
Twelve is really a number of a full circle of consciousness. We have gone through a full circle of consciousness in the clear presence of the spiritual world and in the clear insight of our "I." Maybe we don't exactly know what that means but all of us sharing Inner Christmas have been active during the Holy Nights - we have moved through a full circle together.
Why would the presence of either the spiritual world or our "I" consciousness fade or blur? Perhaps it is our attention that now dives into ordinary life.
Are the Holy Nights, a yearly spiritual feast, filling us with 12 spiritual dishes that we then digest and make our own? We can then ask which of these dishes did our soul enjoy immediately, which will we savor over the year. Which dish gave our soul something to chew on? Has it been a good meal? Is tonight's message a sweet or savory ending?
What are the three crowns the soul can grow to wear? The crown of Truth. The crown of Beauty. The crown of Goodness.
The soul, your soul, can only wear the crowns through much moral striving. It is moral striving to work with the question, "What is Truth/Beauty/Goodness?" This asks you to wonder - growing the last capacity is dependent on growing the first!
Ask 12 questions about Truth.
Then ask twelve questions about Beauty.
And finally, ask twelve questions about Goodness.
Write them down. Do not try to answer them but do reread them and keep them somewhere to read next Christmas before beginning the Holy Nights.
In your whole life, have you ever asked even three questions about Truth, Beauty or Goodness? Isn't it about time? It is for me.
This is how we begin the year and end the Holy Nights, finding our simple questions about the three crowns of our soul.
Let the questions you have grow in your soul through the year.
If you would like to share your questions and inspire others, please do so at www.innerchristmas2010.blogspot.com
