Letter to brother,
Manuel Cirilo
Dear Manuel,
The wailing December winds, the lamentations of the elements and the falling leaves turned brown symbolize a multitude of hard pressed people, to me, left helpless in the jaws of changing times. Some cannot cope emotionally, some have been left homeless. Considering that you are in the rental business and dealing with the public as I am, you are probably aware of the approaching depression(?). I am "Charley" and cuddling under the orange trees, enjoying the fruit juice, thanking God for every blessing.
Our Daddy taught us well, never to be a charge to any one and our Mother [taught us] never to eat the bread of idleness.
"Get out and find something to do," Mother would say. When I could not hire out as a half-man for fifty cents a day or even a quarter; when I could find no tomato or cabbage to transplant ... for all of us I would find and ask for the cotton gleanings. Sometimes we would glean cotton fields covered with briars (thorns).
Once we gleaned the road side while mother drove the five miles to town. We made more money then Dad could make in a week, fourteen dollars plus the seed to feed the cows. I proudly looked at all the tired smiling faces in the old car and wondered what unhappy event would separate our family.
In my heart I knew that this was easy for kids but it would never do for grownups, and I thought I was grown. The milk man across the street on mile eight had wanted to adopt me (to milk his cows). I asked then with a pang deep inside, "Which of you all would like to leave this family because we are poor?" In one voice and separately everyone vowed that we would never be separated. "No way!"
Nevertheless, for every seed that Autumn drops into the heart of the earth there exists a different manner of splitting the shell from the pulp; then are created leaves, then blossoms, then fruit; their continuity perpetual.
And we as driftwood have set a pattern for ourselves looking to God from different horizons, to nurture our souls, each in our own perplexity, self esteem, or social hypothesis; for I dare say that we are all too headstrong to be hypocritical.
Regardless, in the fashion which this takes place, these plants must all undertake one sole pilgrimage, and their mission is to stand before the face of the sun ... and we before God, every dot and every tittle is accounted for.
Neither can we separate the rose from its aroma for they are one and the same in essence. By all enthrallment of universal and intermediate propulsion of vehicles I am sure of the invisible pillars of power obediently upholding all the stars in the void. Only the most foolish can acknowledge a creation but no creator.
Man struggles to find truth and God outside himself unawares that the life he is seeking is within him. Is there any light outside the eye by which we can illuminate the way into our innerdepth? How to open our understanding and eat the fruit of knowledge except by inner, fervent intensity of desire? "Know ye not that the kingdom of God is within you?" ... Hidden to the wise and the prudent. Hidden from the wise guys by the self same spirit which drives them. "You are his to whom you yield your members."
What kind of spirit motivates you? Is it the love of God? Seek an identity with Him. Seek and you shall find. It is written that to bring forth new life a seed must first fall to the ground and die. Likewise we must be born again and when we are no man has to tell us.
All the glee of all the ball games in the life of a ball fan cannot light a candle to the ecstasy of that one moment; and could you begrudge the emotional eruption? By what authority? God hates a proud heart and a haughty spirit he loathes. This is also written in The Book. Decency and order and a perfect formation cannot confine the sound of breaking through a sound barrier ... and you would be foolish to try and explain it to the simple hearted. "He who humbles himself shall be exhorted and he who exhorts himself shall be humbled." ... "The sun is but a bubble the earth a whiff of foam." Nevertheless no one can love God by the gift of his handiwork much more than I, by the same token, including you.
Not having devoted any time to molecular study I consider all things equal in essence; the dollar and the penny. In one atom are found all the elements of the earth; in one motion of the mind all the motions of all the laws of existence (the universe) and what a sophisticated machine our physical body is ... and who can doubt the higher glory of an eternal soul?
In one drop of water are found the secrets of all the endless oceans; in one expect of you are found all the expects of existence. All things in this universe exist in you, with you, for you. God gave man dominion over all things that he can see or have faith for. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." Only what we can see with the eye is perishable, all of it.
He who sees his real self sees the truth of real life for himself, for all humanity, and for all things. Self hate or self condemnation is the beginning of deterioration of body and soul. Embody first the forgiveness of others and then self ... lest in forgiving yourself first you might be passing the buck. Be not gullible but analytically teachable. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." Same as the Lamb of God. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."
One cannot lose his faith in humanity because of a few hot checks nor in the clergy because of ignorant preachers ... The true light is that which emanates from within man and reveals the secrets of the heart to the soul ... making it happy and content with life.
Truth is like the stars it does not appear except from obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the throe of falsehood. Our comprehension of death, for instance, is false ... everything lives after its kind and our soul has the option of eternal life in Christ, Jesus.
The truth might sometimes hurt but a lie is like a decayed tooth in the head which will soon poison the whole body ... yes even the church body. Did someone say, "I have called you as sheep among the wolves; what has made you as wolves among the sheep?" I know it is part of something I read somewhere as is everything else since the A B C's.
by Eleazar Cirilo, n.d.
All works here, Copyright © Lotus D. Cirilo, 1999
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