Ode on Intimations of Immortality (by William Wordsworth)
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
What if we’ve simply forgotten who we are? We’re created by love, we come from love, we live in love, we die in love and we return to love, What makes that so hard to believe if God is ONLY love? Becuase very early in this world of fear, though we’re born in love, we learn fear. But throughout our lives there’s a longing that remains. A yearning and a hunger for love and perhaps even a remembrance of love. And our task, hopefully is to reawaken fully to that love. To move from fear to love and learn how to live in the love that we not only have, but that we are. The goal of the spiritual journey is to wake up and remember who we are, who walks with us, where we come from and that our task simply is to love. Heaven lies about us in our infancy but I have to think that even now, no matter how old I am, it’s still there – the kingdom of love of which I am a child. God wake me up. Help me to remember. “Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.” (Eph. 5:14) We’ll remember!
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