His Master's Voice

"The true possession of God depends ... on an inward directing of the reason and intention toward God -- not on a constant contemplation in an unchanging manner; for it would be impossible for nature to preserve such an intention... 'You should be like men who are always watching and waiting for their master.' "

I read this line in Meister Eckhart this morning, and it reminded me immediately of the old RCA/Victrola logo of the dog standing beside the gramophone, ears cocked, listening for "His Master's Voice."

And somehow I found it reassuring -- this thought that though we may not always be HEARING the voice of the Divine, we might at least, like a hungry dog, be frequently reminded -- if only by our hunger pangs -- to listen, to watch, to reconnect. Somehow that seems easier for me to manage; more do-able.

Like a certain daughter of mine, I tend to have a low flashpoint (though I usually flame out fairly quickly). Though I'm better at containing the sparks these days, I have this unfortunate tendency to flare up, and then it takes me a while sometimes to pull away from the fire and think, oh, wait, where's the gift in this and what does it teach me about myself?

So it's reassuring to think that I do -- mostly, eventually -- remember to ask those questions, and that the asking brings me back to the feet of the master. It's a good sign, a sign that progress is being made. It's okay that I'm not perfect yet; having the intention, however slowly it might surface at times, is a good thing.

What's amusing to me this morning is that, thinking of this passage, I knew I wanted to use this image. But I still wanted to deal with the Thomas lesson first. And in the end I ended up writing and designing a completely new meditation for today's Logion. Why am I not surprised that it also required a new title -- and that that title turned out to be HUNGER?

Hmmm.

After writing this, I signed onto my email and found another Divine reassurance from Camille and Kabir Helminski, via the Spirituality and Practice Course on InterSpirituality:

"Sometimes, we are not capable of being compassionate, or forgiving. Sometimes we cannot do what we know is right. Rumi suggests a way of seeing our own incapacity with compassion. Sometimes, the Divine may lay upon us chains of incapacity. Why? From the Sufi point of view, that we may realize our utter dependence on the Divine and ask for forgiveness and help."

How lovely, to see our weaknesses from that perspective -- as further opportunities to throw ourselves into the arms of the Divine!

I'm so there...