“In those days, there was no king in Israel: but every one did that which seemed right to himself.”—Judges 21: 24
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They walked upon trail through woods beneath winter sky of somber gray. In movement, dampened leaves of slow fall in night before collapsed with muted sound beneath their weight in steps. Trail let led to ledge of small cliff where, below, ran an intermittent stream; its wash and running with the rains slow-carving cliff’s face over eons; subtle and unnoticed by day and year, but changed across millennia like the flora and fauna that lived beside it’s face.
With the rains of night before, the stream ran slow, sounding over ledges of stone and catching and purling into after pools that held water even when stream’s current ceased to flow. It was a gentle sound, beneath vantage of calm, and they rested together on fallen tree, coats strewn beneath their seats, as they listened and observed sight of a world without man’s haste.
The land was wild, but aligned in compliment and interdependence that is ever changing landscapes and worlds left alone from ambitions and designs.
In the tops of trees, songs of resting birds spoke amongst the limbs as the two stilled and became piece, no longer threat and intruder, to the scene.
Listening, and viewing, contemplating view and serenity throughout God’s shaped design, he asked, “At what point does it become sin? Does it hold in a thought, or only in act?”
She listened but troubled little of the question. “It isn’t something I think much about,” she answered, “Don’t overthink it,” she told. “If you ask the question, maybe you already sense an answer. From what you’ve learned in living, what’s the answer seem to you?”
“When you know it’s without love…” he spoke, staring down into a purling pool in stream. On its face, a single leaf floated, circling round and round, holding in the catch of current, course repeated slow, again and again—never seeming to move on. In the depths of the pool, its floor showed with bed of colored leaves, caught, sank, and claimed in hole’s holding circle-current and slow-drowning undertow.
He watched the leaf in pattern-drift, wondering if it would ever break free.
As he held in thought and eyes upon the leaf, she never lost her levity, even in gray and cool of sky.
“Then check your heart, and make sure it is with love,” she spoke. “And if it is, don’t imagine shadow where there’s none.” She dismissed the severity of his countenance with her own levity that rose in return to openness and wilds.
She stared too on the circling leaf, and finding further words to thought and interior discernments, she continued, “There is no virtue in false sins. They don’t honor you as a martyr. They condemn you to denial of witness to the Wonder that is everywhere around, that—in determination for self-damnation—you are too afraid to know in the blessing of life-experience.
Don’t let mind and reason override discernments that hint to greater truths. Is not the Book filled with examples and violations of the laws? Even the son of God is condemned by the leaders of his church? Why?
Because they placed law before love; and wrongful-righteousness became damnation.
Rules are beginnings, for those lost and in need of foundation. But once you learn and begin to feel, there are infinite paths that still arrive to a destination, and it is the wandering that makes it interesting as we move—sensing and led—as presence in moment, whatever guiding Force, Spirit, Energy, or Diety may be; that guides us in our course.
Sometimes we’ll do wrong. It is blessing, lesson, and experience for learning right. As long as we are moving, learning, living; we are never fixed. God gives infinite opportunities. We should afford ourselves the same understanding we are purposefully made as human. Failure and learning is all piece to free will better discerning—and choosing—love and right.
Man wants easy answers, but easy answers are incomplete and not the whole of it. God has a Book, but even He doesn’t always follow it. Accept there is plenty we’ll never know, and don’t trouble on the details when love in heart guides the greatest truth. Isn’t that Faith?
Over-thinking is torment from tree we were never meant to taste. Why let it spoil all the Wonder that remains? The world is still of Eden if, for it, we seek to see.”
Her eyes held still on the circling leaf, hoping fate would change it’s course; the smallest shift, and new course would set it free, if only it released from cycle of its way. Then, as she thought, a wind breathed into the wild, breath catching, blowing, and lifting on raised edge of leaf in cycle current.
A course was changed.
Hope answered, she smiled as leaf broke free.
She rose from place on the fallen tree and covered herself again with coat.
“Let’s keep moving,” she spoke. “I’m tired of the trail,” smiling with a warmth and energy that defied the winter sky.
“Where to?” he asked.
She didn’t have an answer, and it wasn’t something that she sought.
“Wherever we are led,” she answered in playful mirth. Birds called in chorus from greater height upon the ridge, and as she turned, a thinning of cloud shone casting silver and still veiled light from above its crest.
Curiosity piqued.
“Let’s learn the other side,” she spoke.
Course was changed, reference made, new direction chosen; and from place of rest, they rose.