I am a human being. As one, I have knowledge of my own existence. Existence is Lord. All things true arise from existence. I can forget. If I do I become the slave to non-existence. Knowledge of existence is like a pitcher of a precious fluid.
Everyone alive has such a pitcher. A pitcher that something fills with precious fluid. I keep pouring mine out on the ground, leaving me holding an empty pitcher in wonder. The pitcher is refilled for me. I do not know what the fluid is for. I want to do something with it. I pour it on the ground and wonder. This has been going on for more than forty years. I am no more aware of the purpose of the precious fluid today than I have ever been. Still, the pitcher is refilled. It is not refilled because of any merit on my part, I know. I continue to pour mine out on the ground and stand holding an empty pitcher wondering what this has all been about. This is my story. And still the pitcher is refilled.
I have learned this much. Each time the pitcher is refilled I feel the fullness within it, how complete it is, and that feels good, and I know it. It is satisfying, and I know it. It took a long time for me to understand this much. I lived many years ignorant of the feeling of satisfied contentment available at such a trivial price and with so little required of me. Nothing. How little is that, Friend? Those years were chaotic. I lived in dread much of the time. I was trying mightily to achieve some goal or other that might bring me satisfaction and peace. Nothing I tried brought more than a fleeting feeling of excited pleasure that seemed always to dissolve even before the goal was reached into another faraway goal to be reached. All the while, this feeling of satisfaction was lying inside as a refilled pitcher of precious fluid, refilled for me time after time by some unknown source that must have remained interested in me even though I was pouring the precious fluid out on the ground.
In truth, I have explored possible ways to use the precious fluid and none have seemed to be anything other than simply pouring it out on the ground and standing rather foolishly, embarrassed, in apologetic wonder. I have heard of people who are able to do something worthy with their pitcher of precious fluid. They use it to grow some lasting fruit trees that continue to produce good fruit. I must admit I do not have evidence of it. Only stories. Whenever I have attempted to locate one of these people they elude me. Like smoke they elude me. So, I am left here holding a pitcher of precious fluid that has been refilled by grace without my deserving a drop of it and , not knowing what else to do, am pouring mine onto the ground to stand again in wonder. No, this time I will not fail to do something worthy of the pitcher full of precious fluid. I will use it to reinvent my world.
Come see us at Swan River Playhouse when it opens.
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