Sanctuary of Peace

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The awakened heart is a sanctuary of peace, a place of joy, a cave of mysteries and home of glory where shadows flee and darkness dazzles.  The heart rejoices in the beauty of its King whose glory fills his Kingdom with boundless love, whose face unveils glory to the saints.  Abidng in the mysteries of the Bridal Chamber, elders weep for all who shut themselves out, all who let fear rule them rather than love.  Wonder steps back in amazement as the Spirit of Truth unveils what fear shut out.  The Spirit breathes uncreated light into the heart, communicating the Truth of the Name, imparting Great Peace to all.  There is no end to the glory of stillness and serenity, no end to the capacity of wisdom to behold glory, transforming image to likeness beyond all images and conceptual extremes.   When wisdom unites with glory, God’s ‘I’ awareness opens to Cherubic oneness with God’s ‘AM’ presence in the Holy of Holies.  When wisdom turns and sees who sees, the Spirit opens us by grace to the Son’s union with the Father.  Ecstatic joy rises like incense from the Holy of Holies.  The sanctuary of glory is filled with Great Peace, imparting serenity beyond the capacity of words or images to convey.   Love fulfils glory in completeness, fulfilling light through all in translucence, transfiguring all in light with glorification.

Fear clings to rules of prayer and liturgical regulations but love’s glory explodes constricted addiction, kindling fires of ascending love that God transforms with his descending glory.  Ascending light calls out for wisdom to descend with love’s healing, hallowing wings.   Wisdom descends to wed glory when glory descends to wed wisdom in the Bridal Chamber.  Their union of love opens the Holy of Holies to the radiance of Holy Trinity, turning prayer into living flame.  The soul weeps for joy as love pierces the heart, leaving open wounds that bleed holy healing to every limb, immersed in wholesome hallowing.  The Name blesses all who turn and see God radiant in the midst, restoring glory at centre by opening hells to heaven.  The mysteries of glory remain ineffable even when they are revealed, preserving the Name from profane scrutiny.  Beauty speaks when words break down, opening glory to glory beyond binary extremes.  Wisdom welcomes glory home with wisdom songs, turning hardened hearts into tongues of flame through tears of joy.  Prophecy is renewed in light, restoring prayer to the heart in glory.  Treasures of wisdom are uncovered again that over many centuries were neglected and forgotten.  Awe-struck wonder receives what fear excludes, so that love cures fear of fear.  Fear is reassured and welcomed into the sanctuary of peace as love responding to love with love.

Blessed are all who hallow God’s Name in the heart.  The Name is the priceless pearl of the Gospels, treasured in the awakened heart, kindling its invisible spark into great flame.  Blessed are prophets imparting wisdom to the apostles, kindling light from light that elders transmit to the saints.  Blessed is the Name ‘I AM,’ which reveals uncreated presence to uncreated awareness in the midst.  Prophecy awakens prayer of the heart so that elders can again transmit  wisdom to the saints.  Blessed are those who awaken to God in wisdom, wisdom that opens light through light and glory to glory in the saints.  This flame was lost when wisdom was neglected and tradition suffered from hardening encrustation, concealing living depths behind shallow exteriors, stifling boundless openness with narrow constriction.  Blessed is the Name that saves, ‘YAH Shuah,’ enshrined in the name of Jesus in the Jesus Prayer, because God unveils God through God when the Prayer of Jesus is prayed as revelation of Holy Trinity.  The beauty of wisdom is glory unveiled in the Name, glory revealed in the sanctuary of an awakened heart as Great Peace.

Blessed is the tree of life which the Name plants as wisdom, beholding glory in the heart.  The sanctuary of the heart is filled with Great Peace when the Name is hallowed so the Kingdom comes.  The practice of wisdom entails the praxis of theoria, or turning that that awakens to seeing, so all pathological divison between active and contemplative life is healed.  Glorification calls for the praxis of purification and the theoria of illumination, meaning that their division into separate states or modes of life is not congruent with Orthodox practice.  Purification of the heart occurs through illumination and illumination unfolds through the practice of radiant wisdom, curing dissipating thoughts and disintegrating passions.  Blessed is the Name that restores the mind to pure awareness through wisdom and the heart to the pure presence of glory, uniting the divine ‘I’ of wisdom with the divine ‘AM’ of glory.  The unceasing remembrance of God is the prayer of the Holy Spirit in the heart, restoring it to timeless union of the divine ‘I’ with the divine ‘AM’ in Holy Trinity. The union of the three persons is a communion of ‘I’ and ‘AM,’ which is a co-inherence of wisdom and glory in the Name.  This is noetic prayer, which is prayer of the heart that elders do not confuse with mental prayer, such as set verbal prayers said in church with the rational mind.  The heart rests in the peace of the Name, which is the peace of wisdom’s union with glory, the Name’s revelation of God’s ‘I’ in union with God’s ‘AM.’  This co-inherence of wisdom and glory in the Name is the divine foundation of the Great Peace.  Glorification transforms the heart into a sanctuary of wisdom and glory, which is the holy dwelling place of God’s Name, the hallowed home of Great Peace.