11: A Hound of Heaven

11

A Hound of Heaven

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Friday, August 12, 2011

6: 50 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          In my last letter I wrote something that I have to explore, because it will help to explain why spiritual seekers are driven the way they are and so hard to understand. I wrote: “Nobody can understand a hound of heaven but another hound of heaven.”

          We’ve all heard the expression “it takes one to know one.” That’s because they have a similar state of consciousness, or a similar frequency of vibrations if you will. They resonate with their own kind, and a spiritual seeker has the consciousness of a spiritual seeker, which is why only a hound of heaven can understand a hound of heaven.

          But that doesn’t explain what a hound of heaven is, though; all it tells us is that spiritual seekers are different from the rest of the world. What makes them different, that’s the question? What made me different? What made you different, Padre?

For that matter, what made the author of the new book (The Gifts of Responsibility) that you brought into my life yesterday different, because from what I’ve read so far I’d say that this author is a hound of heaven?

          I was driving home from Midland yesterday when I got the sudden urge to drive into Barrie to visit my friend at her bookstore. I picked up coffee at Tim Hortons on Bayfield for us, and as I sat behind the counter talking with my friend the author of The Gifts of Responsibility came into the store to drop off four copies of her newly published book for my friend to sell in her store. She also had a bag of used books that she wanted to sell to my friend, and as she put them onto the counter the title of one book jumped out at me—The Disappearance of the Universe, by Gary R. Reynard, the book I couldn’t finish reading because I felt that something wasn’t right about the information passed on to the author by the “Ascended Masters,” and which you confirmed when I pressed you in one of my spiritual healing sessions. You said this book “poisoned the mind.”

          I made a negative comment about this book that I regret making, because you told me to be careful about how I talked about this book, and this automatically put the lady on the defensive; but it did initiate a conversation, and we ended up exchanging our newly published books; she gave me a copy of her book The Gifts of Responsibility, and I gave her a copy of my book Keeper of the Flame.

Now tell me what you think of this, Padre. I honestly believe that Providence had us meet and exchange our books because we both have something to learn from each other. She will get something from Keeper of the Flame that she needs, and I will get something from The Gifts of Responsibility that I need—and which I am getting in fact, because I’m half way through her book and I love what I’ve read so far.

Last night as I was going to sleep I got an image of being in the womb of her soul. Her book is the story of how she expanded her Roman Catholic faith to include what can simply be called a New Age spiritual perspective on life, and the impression that her book made upon me was translated into the image of being in the womb of her soul; which told me that she’s in the process of creating her own spiritual identity, and the next stage of her journey is to give birth to her spiritual self.

She’s a hound of heaven that has been “clasped” by the Hand of God and will not rest until she gives birth to her spiritual self; and I was a hound of heaven that was “clasped” by the Hand of God and gave birth to my spiritual self. As I wrote in Keeper of the Flame, I gave birth to my spiritual self in my mother’s kitchen while she was kneading bread dough on the kitchen table; so I think that Providence had us meet because we have something for each other. What that would be, I don’t know; but I believe it to be so.

And I think she would agree with this, because this is what she wrote in The Gifts of Responsibility: “There are no coincidences, only synchronicity. Once we have understood and mastered this cosmic phenomenon (karma), life will no longer be perceived as a struggle. The possibilities of unending adventures comprised of many moments in time will appear as part of a cosmic reality we can refer to as Divine Orchestration” (p. 5).

So, Padre; I know that you orchestrated our meeting, because she’s a Roman Catholic who expanded her faith to include the many dimensions of spirituality, as I have done, and we have something to learn from each other, and I thank you for bringing us together. But to get back to the point of this letter, what exactly defines a hound of heaven?

When you said “I want to inebriate myself with pain,” I understood exactly what you meant, because that resonated with me; but to explain this would be like trying to explain the color blue to a person born blind. It can’t be done; which is why my mentor Gurdjieff said that there is only self-initiation into the mysteries of life.

Nonetheless, I will try to come to an understanding by way of analogy. Take a person who is addicted. He cannot help himself. He has to have his fix, be it alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex, or whatever. In like manner, a hound of heaven has to have his fix also, which is God.

A hound of heaven craves God, and he will get his God fix wherever he can, which is why Francis Thompson calls him a hound of heaven. Like the hound that has caught the scent of God, he will not rest until he finds God. “Rise, clasp My hand, and come!” says God, and the hound of heaven has no choice but to come to God!

When a soul is called by God, it becomes a seeker—or, as the poet calls him, a hound of heaven. This is why you wanted to inebriate yourself with pain—because in your pain you sacrificed yourself for Jesus, and in your sacrifice you got your God fix, which in one of my healing sessions you called your “glory.” I understood that, Padre.

My spiritual sensitive who channeled you didn’t understand, because she was not addicted to God like we were; but in our addiction to God we separated ourselves from the rest of the world. This is why you said to me, “We’re very much alike.”

You got your God fix through self-sacrifice, and I got my God fix by “working” on myself as I lived the Way. I had to be very resourceful to feed my habit, but I became so frantic when I couldn’t get enough of God that I fell for an offshoot Christian solar cult teaching that promised the Logos with the solar techniques, because the God-force was said to be imbued with the rays of the sun. I was so desperate for my God fix that I didn’t care if this was true or not, and I enrolled in this teaching and practiced the solar techniques for three years when I began to feel the effects on my eyes. I went to an ophthalmologist, and the rest is history, which I may write about in a novel one day.

I have a feeling that you want me to write this story, don’t you? That’s why I thought about an early draft of my novel “The Sunworshipper” the other day; but we can talk about this some other time. The point I wanted to make with this letter is that unless one is called by God he will never understand what it means to be a hound of heaven.

That’s all I have to say for now, except that I have a dentist appointment at noon and would like you to accompany me because I dread going to the dentist.

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest

10: The River of God

10

The River Of God

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Thursday, August 11,2011

8: 45 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          Okay, Penny and I thought it over and this morning decided that I should go ahead with a new blog; but Penny wasn’t comfortable with the title that I had chosen for my book of letters to you, so we tried a variety of titles until we came upon one that we both agreed upon: The River Of God, Private Letters to Ascended Master St. Padre Pio. “There,” she said; “now you can have your cake and eat it, too.”

          She said that because I wanted to keep “Ascended Master” in my title, which she didn’t like (she still can’t wrap her head around my relationship with you, but she’s going with it), and she wanted the word “personal” in the title, but we settled on “private” because it’s catchier. What do you think?

          Penny thought the image of a river would catch the reader’s attention, and I agreed because it makes reference to the River of God that you spoke about in my spiritual healing sessions, the image of the Divine Current that flows from God to create life and carry soul back home to God.

          You went into more detail, though. You used the image of one placing a big stone in the River of God, which impeded the flow of the Divine Current in his life, like the huge boulder that I had created with my spiritual conceit that impeded the flow of the Divine Current in my life—hence, my spiritual healing brought about by your sanctifying grace!

          I’ve thanked you already for my spiritual healing, Padre; but I’d like to thank you again because my sessions with you changed my life. Like I said to my friend at her bookstore yesterday, “I feel such an enormous relief since my healing sessions with Padre Pio. You don’t realize how heavy ego can be until you’re relieved of its weight upon your soul. Honest to God, I think ego has to be the most burdensome thing in the world!”

          I wanted to puke at the thought of my pre-Padre Pio life; that’s how disgusted I was with my own spiritual conceit. Had I not been slain by your humility I would still be out there blindly strutting my stuff like the spiritual peacock that I was! This reminds me of the comment made by the Spiritual Traveler Rebazar Tarzs about Jesus strutting his stuff like a peacock—not to compare myself with Jesus, though. God forbid!

          No, all I want to do is show that we are all blind to our own vanity—our own “stone” in the River of God that impedes the flow of the Divine Current of Love in our life, and I’m sure that Jesus had his moments.

That’s what the River of God is, an endless current of Love that flows from God and back to God. Jesus called it the “water of everlasting life,” and as it flows from God it creates and sustains life, and as it flows back to God it awakens and returns soul back home a spiritually self-realized, God conscious soul ready to serve in the Divine Plan of God as you are doing by helping souls on their journey through life.

Padre, how did you know that you would do more to help mankind from Heaven than you were doing in your humble role as a Capuchin monk who said Mass every morning and listened to over one hundred confessions every day, not to mention your personal response to the many letters that people wrote you, when you were allowed to respond that is?

Your superiors, whom you obeyed absolutely because of your vow of obedience, denied you this precious gift of service for a period of time; but I don’t want to get into that here. Suffice to say that I know how much you had to suffer to serve your fellow man, but serve you did; and now you are serving from the Other Side in your capacity as an Ascended Master, and I can’t thank you enough for bringing me together with my spiritual sensitive who channeled you so we could do a book on spiritual healing. And when I asked if we would meet again, you said, “Our work is not yet done, my son.”

Did you “anticipate” this book of letters? I did ask if we would be doing another book with my spiritual sensitive and you said yes, and I even caught a glimpse of the theme of this new project which was inspired by Ecclesiastes; but it never occurred to me to write you a series of letters until a few weeks ago when I was reading on our front deck.

The thought came to me out of the blue, but I know that you planted that seed in my mind, and it didn’t take long to take root because I’ve always wanted to write a book of letters. And just the other night as Penny and I were doing our spiritual contemplation you planted the seed in my mind to create a new blog for my letters and share them with the public before I publish them in book form!

Once again, I had no thought of posting them on a blog site. That idea came to me out of the blue also, and I know you gave it to me; so Penny and I have decided to go ahead with it, and when she comes back from her trip up north where she’s going for her niece’s wedding (and to visit her father), she will create my new blog site for me because I don’t have a clue how to go about it and I can begin posting my letters to you. Are you happy now?

When you’re called to serve, you’re called aren’t you? I almost feel like I felt when I caught my first scent of the Way and had to follow it like the hound of Heaven in Thompson’s poem. I had to go wherever the scent took me, and believe me it took me to places that taught me lessons I will never forget—like that offshoot Christian solar cult teaching brought into the world by a “Child Christ” that did damage to my eyesight! But I can’t bring myself to talk about that now.

Strangely enough however, the thought came to me just yesterday to dig out my old manuscript of the novel that I started to write on my experience with this Christian solar cult teaching that I studied for three years.

I never think about this novel, because the thought of reliving that experience horrifies me. I called it “The Sunworshipper,” but the thought came to me yesterday to write it as the main story in a book of short stories, and it was strong enough for me almost go to the basement and dig up my manuscript; so I guess you just planted the seed for now. But it would make a great story because it would reveal how far one will go to find his way back home to God—like risking one’s eyesight as I did by burning three holes in the retina of my eyes with the solar techniques that this teaching taught to ingest the Logos supposedly imbued with the rays of the sun!

Wow! I still cringe at my experience. I couldn’t write this novel because I couldn’t relive the trauma of that whole experience, especially with my ophthalmologist who was so angry with me for doing those solar techniques that he dismissed me from his examining room and I had to fly down to the eye clinic in Waterloo for the appointment that my brother had arranged for me to find out how much damage I had done to my eyes.

 But how could I explain to the ophthalmologist at the Thunder Bay Clinic the power of the Call of God? I could have asked him to read Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven,” but what good would that have done? Nobody can understand a “hound of heaven” but another “hound of heaven.” “Rise, clasp my Hand, and come!” God commands, and I paid a dear price to be clasped by the Hand of God—as did you, Padre. God, I can’t begin to fathom the pain you suffered for fifty years with the stigmata; but that was your choice. You did ask Jesus how you could serve his mission, and he gave you his five crucifixion wounds, and you embraced la via d’sofferenza so passionately that you said, “I want to inebriate myself with pain.” But why, the reader may ask? Why would one be so foolish to suffer like that? Where’s the logic?

We could tell them, couldn’t we? But I think I’ll wait for another letter when I can delve into the mystery of what you called your “glory” and I came to call “virtue” and Jesus called “treasures in heaven.”

Indeed, the River of God has as many streams as there are souls in God’s Kingdom. As you said, “life is a journey of the self.” But mercifully, every stream will eventually find its way back into the River of God and flow back to the Godhead—eureka!

Didn’t I say at the beginning of this project that my book of letters would find its own theme? Well, it just popped up—the River of God! This theme speaks to everyone, and I do believe that this is going to be the final title to my book of letters to Ascended Master St. Padre Pio!

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest

9: The Many Dimensions Of Spirituality

 9

The Many Dimensions of Spirituality

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Wednesday, Aug.10, 2011

6:10 A.M.

Dear Padre,

         

          While Penny and I were doing our spiritual contemplation last night, the thought came to me to post my letters to you on a blog. I already have a blog for my spiritual musings, but the thought came through loud and clear to post my letters to you. Did you plant this thought?

          I ran it by Penny, and after our spiritual contemplation she read my first two letters to you and smiled, then chuckled because she found them rather revealing, especially when I talk about my propensity to procrastinate. “You should read this letter every week to remind yourself,” she said, and laughed. Thank goodness for her patience.

          I’ve decided to think about it. I don’t want to jump right in because it would mean a commitment. I have the pressure of writing a spiritual musing every week on top of working on my current novel and getting my first book of musings ready to be published, so before I commit myself to posting my letters to you on a new blog site I’d like to have at least twenty or so letters already written so I don’t put myself behind the eight ball.

          Last night when I went to sleep I asked if I could meet you in my dreams. “Give me something interesting for my letters,” I said, hoping to entice you into my dreams; but I should know better.

          Spirit does what Spirit wills, and all I can hope for is a happy coincidence of my will coinciding with Spirit’s will. In any event, Penny and I talked over the possibilities of posting my Padre Pio letters and we think it would be a great way to get more exposure; but more importantly, it would offer Christian readers an outside-the-box perspective on the many dimensions of spirituality.

          But the question is, do they want to know about the many dimensions of spirituality? I get the feeling they don’t. I can’t help but feel that people today are in a very strange place, consciousness wise. They are being forced to wake up because of world events, but the responsibility that comes with greater consciousness forces them to try to stay asleep a little longer, spiritually speaking. There’s a great resistance to acknowledge what’s going on in the world. I was rereading The Only Planet of Choice yesterday, and the spokesman for the Nine Enlightened Beings said that we are all individually responsible for the state of the world, but this is too much for people to bear, and so they prefer not to wake up; hence, the obsessive preoccupation with the little self.

          “It is because people are frightened to find out who they really are,” said Tom, the spokesman for the Nine Enlightened Beings, “for when they know that completely, they feel the responsibility is too great” (p. 269).

This fear of self-knowledge keeps people spiritually asleep.

          But to keep the world from self-destruction, we have to wake up and “remove self from self,” said Tom, which we also discussed in my chapter “The Selfless Self” in Healing with Padre Pio; but this is not a concept that will soon catch fire because the self is much too entrenched in its own needs, desires, and daily struggles. Indeed, life has to get very difficult before people wake up to their spiritual responsibility to themselves and the world at large. I’m sure we can expect more catastrophes and political upheavals.

          So should I post my letters? I have one concern that bothers me (aside from how readers might respond to this literary exercise), and that has to do with maintaining the integrity of my letters, because you can rest assured that I will have one eye on my reader as I open myself up to you.

It’s my intention to open up my heart to you with these letters, because I want to grow in spirit, and there’s no better way to grow in spirit than to open up one’s heart; fear however may keep me from being as frank as I want to be.

          Indeed, fear is the bugaboo of spiritual growth, isn’t it? We have to talk about this in my next book with you. I don’t know when this is going to be. I thought we would be starting it next spring, but it looks more like next fall or winter now because I have to get Healing with Padre Pio out before we begin our next project with my spiritual sensitive who channeled you, and I don’t think we can get it out before spring. But it’s all choreographed from above, isn’t it Padre? So why worry?

          Just do what we have to do and let the day unfold. That seems to be the way to live in the Moment. I only wish it were as simple as that. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m just not getting it. I’d sure love to meet someone who lives in the Moment. Maybe I’ve already met them and did not recognize that they live in the Moment. What would characterize them?

          I’m doing a lot of blathering this morning, aren’t I? I have to leave at 7:30 for an eight o’clock appointment at Canadian Tire in Midland for my van. I blew my muffler the other day. I may need a whole new tailpipe, I don’t know; but this is the third thing that’s happened to me that is going to cost us.

          I may have cracked a tooth a two weeks ago, because I still can’t bite on it; so I have a dentist appointment this Friday and may be looking at a root canal. We don’t have a dental plan, so there’s an unexpected expense, and our lawn tractor broke down and is getting repaired. We had work done on it last year to the tune of six hundred dollars, and it’s only four years old. I know, that’s life; but does it have to gang up on us?

Same day, 7 P.M….

            Padre, I got a break on my muffler. I didn’t blow my muffler, or my tailpipe; they had to replace a flange that had rusted out. Labor and material came to $111.00, which is far better than what I expected; and I had an interesting experience while waiting for my van.

          A customer waiting for his vehicle, whose name was Don, talked about his life. It started with my comment about getting a break on my muffler, which opened the door for how many times he had been “screwed royally” in his life (great material for my book Old Whore Life), and I listened to his incredible story of misadventure for half an hour or more, and what a story it was! But throughout his story, he kept telling me that he could not compromise himself—which cost him his military career!

I told him he should write a novel.

          “Yeah, everybody tells me that,” he said, but I think the whole point of me being there with him was to let him experience your presence with me, and I know you will be working on him now; so, Padre, I did my part and introduced him to your energy, and I wish him the best on his journey through life.

          Then I drove into Barrie to visit my friend at her bookstore, and guess what? I ended up exchanging my novel Keeper of the Flame with a clinical psychologist from Wasaga Beach who was dropping off some copies of her own book to sell on consignment. Her book is called The Gifts of Responsibility, and from her bio I learned that she was a Roman Catholic who expanded the horizons of her faith. Her book interests me very much, and I will share my feelings with you when I’ve read it. Incidentally, Padre, I think you brought this book into my life for my spiritual growth.

          I also had a long conversation in the bookstore with two other ladies, one in her fifties and the other in her eighties, and for some reason both needed to make the point that they had to be true to themselves—which brought to mind what I said this morning about meeting people who live in the Moment. Did I get my answer? Do we live in the Moment by being true to ourselves? Is this the message you tried to give me today with all these people who talked about how they had to be true to themselves?

I’ll have to do a spiritual musing on this…

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest

8: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

8

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Sunday, August 7, 2011

5:35 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          Yesterday Penny and I attended our monthly Spiritual Discourse class in Washago, which is just north of Orillia. We usually attend these classes in Orillia, but a member of our group wanted to hold a potluck lunch after our class at her place by the river in Washago, so we decided to hold the class there also yesterday, and it was a beautiful day.

          We didn’t know what we were going to bring for potluck lunch. Penny thought of making a Wisconsin Strawberry Pie (she had just made one for my birthday), but she opted for a big bowl of potato salad instead, enough for a dozen people; and I decided to make Italian Bruschetta for an appetizer because I had picked up a basket of fresh field tomatoes at Johnson’s Market in Midland, and I sliced up enough French baguette so everyone could have at least two pieces of Bruschetta.

          Penny made her potato salad the night before, and I made the Bruschetta early Saturday morning because I had to toast the slices of baguette.

          We held our class outdoors in the back yard overlooking the river with the occasional pontoon boat and canoe floating up or down the river, and it was one of the best classes we’ve ever had. There were the seven regular members in our class, plus one guest from southern Ontario who was a friend of the lady hosting the potluck (she had been invited to stay the weekend), and there was plenty of discussion on the Spiritual Discourse.

          After the class we served ourselves the potluck buffet. There was no main entrée, because no one had brought one (the hostess’s contribution to the potluck was a very small chocolate cake), one lady brought a small pasta salad, another lady with a giving heart brought a specially prepared rice dish and plate of veggies and dip (she’s on a strict diet for health reasons and just wanted to make sure she would have something she could eat), Penny had potato salad, I added my Bruschetta, and the hostess’s husband went out and bought some fresh corn while we were doing our class and his wife steamed half a dozen cut in half immediately after class, another lady brought a small bowl of fruit salad made of chunks of watermelon and a few blueberries and fewer strawberries, and the last member of the class, who is a newcomer to the teaching, didn’t bring anything; and there was water, tea, and coffee for beverages. That was it.

          Padre, I don’t know how to broach this subject without pushing some buttons (which I think deserve to be pushed), but I have to because it speaks to the nature of love—or, more precisely, to the paucity of love.

If you remember in my last letter (“What Does Love Look Like?”) I quoted the Monks of New Skete who said, “love looks like generosity,” but generosity is not a virtue that Penny and I have witnessed very often since we moved to Georgian Bay. In fact, it is so well hidden that I don’t think people would recognize it if they saw it; or, rather, to be perfectly honest, they would be shocked by it—as Penny and I witnessed when we held a potluck harvest turkey dinner at our house for the members of our spiritual community the first year we moved here. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

This quality about people that we have witnessed more often than we would care to admit—I don’t know what to call it, perhaps thrift, cheapness, parsimony of spirit—never ceases to astonish us. What would it have taken to barbeque a few hot dogs as a main entrée for our potluck lunch after class? The cost would’ve been minimal, and it was a great day for a barbeque by the river. Even boiled hot dogs. Or lasagna as a main entrée would have gone a long way to satisfying the guests. I’ve picked up lasagnas on sale for Penny and myself for well under ten dollars, and one would have been enough to feed our whole class. That wouldn’t have been asking too much, would it?

As Penny said, the host has an obligation; but that doesn’t seem to apply for some people. Another time we attended a potluck lunch at another member of our spiritual community’s house, also in Washago on the same river before she relocated to southern Ontario after her husband died, and she had a small package of twelve tiny stuffed pastry appetizers for her contribution to the potluck lunch. Thank goodness some members brought enough for everybody. Penny brought a pot full of homemade cabbage rolls, but the hostess didn’t want to turn on the oven to heat them up because it was going to use up too much electricity and Penny had to heat them in a frying pan. And yet, our spiritual path is supposed to be about love!

“Love spends itself willingly for others, be it with time, attention, money, or simply concern,” said the Monks of New Skete—which reminds me of the little incident of how you showed your love one day when you mentioned to your doctor friend (Dr. Mario De Giacomo) that you were fond of spaghetti ala napoletana the way your mother made it and it had been years since you had it last, and out of his great love for you your doctor friend had a lady prepare you a nice big plate and he brought it to you the next day; but as much as you wanted to eat it, you asked your doctor friend to give it to one of the poor peasants who would enjoy the meal much more than you.

Padre, your little sacrifice of the simple plate of one of your favorite dishes speaks to the generosity of your soul, and for my money it was an act of pure grace. That’s what love is supposed to look like!

I don’t want to say any more about the paucity of love that Penny and I have witnessed down here, especially in our own spiritual community (an irony difficult to support because it begs judgment), except for one little point that Penny made at our class. “Love comes from the heart, not the mouth,” she said.

 Indeed, actions speak louder than words!

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest

7: What Does Love Look Like?

7

What Does Love Look Like?

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Monday, August 1, 2011

7:40 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          I’ve just been re-reading the chapter “What Does Love Look Like” in the book In the Spirit of Happiness, by the Monks of New Skete, because I wanted to refresh my memory so I could write a spiritual musing on this fascinating question, but for some reason I feel like sharing my thoughts on love with you; hence my letter this morning.

          I can’t get the memory of my neighbor’s three young boys, especially the two youngest ones, out of my mind. The boys came up with their mother to their family cottage next door (the cottage is shared by her two siblings and young families), but the boys spent much of their time on our front deck with me.

          I love reading on our front deck, so I’ve been spending a lot of time there in the summers since my bypass operation three years ago. Before my bypass I had to work my trade of drywall taping and painting because summer was my busiest time of year, but I’m only picking up small jobs now and I spend many summer afternoons on my deck reading books that I’m called upon to read—like In the Spirit of Happiness, which I felt compelled to read for my book of letters to you, Padre; so the boys would see me on the deck and come over to visit, and talk, and share, and play.

          I mention this because it was like the boys, especially the two young ones, Luca (six) and Christian (two), just couldn’t get enough of my energy. They wanted to touch me and sit on me and be around me. I said to Penny, “I’ve got my spiritual gravitas back!”

 That’s how I used to attract children when I was loaded with spiritual energy when I was consumed by my spiritual quest for my true self and employed every technique I could to gather and collect spiritual energy, because I had learned that to be my true self I had to grow in my true self, and to grow in my true self I had to harness all the spiritual energy that I could get and I harnessed so much energy that I attracted children like flowers attracted bees. One seven year old boy even came down to my house one evening after dinner and knocked on our door and asked my mother if I could come out to play!

This was the most endearing gesture of innocence that I have ever experienced, and this is what the young boys next door reminded me of every time they walked over to be with me on the front deck. But so intrigued was I by their attraction to my energy that I asked Penny, “Why does my energy attract children and repel most adults?”

“It’s their innocence,” she said. “They don’t have anything to hide from you. Most adults have something to hide, and they can’t stand to be around you because your energy threatens their falseness.”

I had to agree with her. In fact, something you said at one of my spiritual healing sessions confirmed this. Remember? I asked you why I affected one member of my spiritual community the way I did. “She has a hate on for me like you wouldn’t believe,” I said, and you replied that it was because I saw something in her that she did not want to face up to, and I threatened what she pretended to be—i.e., a kind, and loving person. Which brings me right back to the theme of this letter—what does love look like?

“Love looks like generosity,” said Father Laurence. “It spends itself willingly (and wisely) for others, be it with time, attention, money, or simply concern” (In the Spirit of Happiness, 255). That’s the face of love that I would like to explore in my letter this morning, and the woman that I threatened is a perfect example of the kind of person who makes out like she’s all about love but her behavior speaks otherwise. 

Didn’t Jesus say, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them?” (Math. 7: 20). Well, I listened to what this woman had to say and then observed her behavior. She loved to humiliate her husband in public at our spiritual functions until I finally called her up on it, telling her to keep her marital dynamic private and not bring it to our functions; and I also told her how gauche it was to bring her own food into a restaurant, which she often did after one of our spiritual functions. As the saying goes, she did not walk her talk. I saw through her, and she hated me for it.

Of course, you told me to be more accepting, kinder in my response to her, and not embarrass her the way I did by challenging her, and I took your advice. Not that I wanted to, but because I knew that this was all part of my own spiritual healing—which culminated in your devastating humility slaying my overwhelming spiritual conceit!

In any event, the point I want to make is that the face of love that I wanted to explore this morning speaks to the generosity of love, which is a face that I’m very familiar with because I learned a long time ago that giving of oneself—be it in time, concern, or coin—is one of the most satisfying ways to grow spiritually, and one of the most obvious.

I can always tell if a person has love in their heart by how they give of themselves, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the cheaper one is (in their time, concern, or coin) the less love they have in their heart. For me, this is a mathematical certainty!

That’s all for today, Padre. I hope I didn’t invite a new spiritual lesson here, as I often do when I speak my mind so frankly.

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest