Encountering the Flame that Does Not Consume

A Reflection for III Lent                                    All Saints Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC February 28, 2016                                      Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Chagall's Moses and the Burning Bush

Exodus 3:1-15              1 Corinthians 10:1-13               Luke 13:1-9                 Psalm 63:1-8

Encountering the Flame that Does Not Consume

“Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

How do we identify “Holy Ground”? It all looks the same and there is no rational reason to differentiate between sacred and profane.

Rudolf Otto wrote a book, The Idea of the Holy, suggesting that in his time, the late 19^th and early 20^th Century, there was much too much reliance on the rational mind as the basis of religion. The rational mind is fine for creeds and theological arguments in academia and for setting up moral standards, but the Divine becomes known to us when we are seized by the irrational. He called the Holy a Mysterium Tremendum ; tremendous in that it fills us with awe- either awe-full or awe-inspiring; indeed a combination of both, an awareness of an energy, a power, greater than ourselves. It is a mystery in that it is something way outside of our usual experience; it is “wholly other” and we are fascinated by it.

Religious experience begins when a person comes across something that is beyond his or her comprehension and then they stop and wonder. Religion develops as a way to come to grips with that which is beyond our understanding. Imagine what it was like for a human being who has to come to grips with a death of a family member or friend and are faced with the dread of death. Or when we watch as a seed became a plant, or when an animal is killed for food and find that the nature of life itself is more complex. Religion develops from the assumptions that there are spiritual realities in persons, places and things. Are the sun or moon or stars different spirits that have control over us? Are they Gods? If so what is the story behind them? Are there demonic energies that we should dread? Is there a way to control or placate, or magically harness these energies for our own good or for the prevention of harm?

Now we can say that this is fine for primitive humans but we are so much more sophisticated than that. Yeah, right! Why are we here on this ribbon of sand at the end of the world which is lousy for raising food, where the cost of living is higher, and which is really difficult to get to, unless we were drawn to a power of the ocean where we can stop what we are doing and be swept with awe and danger? We have been captured by the irrational and by so doing we renew the conversation with the Divine Spirit behind, in, under and through all things.

I get e-mail from some of our young people who have gone off to college and recently I got a couple notes asking me if I believed in demons, ghosts and angels. My half of the conversation went:

I don't believe in ghosts or demons- both of those concepts were outdated attempts to identify spiritual realities using categories which can be easily labeled. They ended up being caricatures. However, I do believe in spiritual energy that cannot be so easily identified or categorized. I have been in situations, churches and houses where I could sense that there was  a heaviness, or bitterness, or anger or joy. Pat and I bought our house based on the sense of love that we could feel in the empty house- these people had loved each other! We passed up a house where there seemed to unresolved anger. My own unscientific and totally irrational ideas are that we carry an energy around with us which does not end with our physical bodies which we leave residues behind as surely as we leave dandruff from our physical bodies.

By definition Angels are messages from God. Poetic mythology gave those messages bodies and names. Mythologies are ways of telling truth but not necessarily historically factual material.. Ghosts and demons were ways to explain the appearances of energy from those who have died or the energy of evil working in our lives and were poetic ways of understanding that energy and how we came into contact with it. God sitting on a throne surrounded by representatives of the Divine is a poetic way of looking at the world to find a metaphor and seeing the Court and Palaces of Kings and using that metaphor as a way of encapsulating the concept of the divine. But every metaphor is always inadequate. I think that the Divine is still speaking but I do not reduce that spiritual energy of strength and grace to winged creatures. I find the poetry comforting and use that language but I have seen angels- communicators of Divine strength and grace in a woman cleaning the club, a sunrise on the beach, a blooming cherry tree outside the church window, my daughter's arms around me when we meet and in so many other guises. I look beyond the outward form and see the spirit that dwells within.

This story from the Book of Exodus in our Hebrew Testament Lesson for today is important in our understanding of God. God is encountered and we are fascinated by that encounter; “How can this be; how can the flame not consume?” As Moses encounters this mystery, this thing that doesn’t make sense, he finds that the deeper energy is not connected to the thing itself; it is indeed connected to nothing that we can touch, see or smell with our usual senses. That nothing is not A thing but the reality of life energy itself; “I am who I am” is its self-identification. It is not trapped in any magic ritual, or controlled by nature but it is the ground under, in and through all being. It is not trapped by time in that this energy was in the lives of forefathers and mothers but it still vibrant even while they are dead. It is not trapped by space, confined in that corner of the wilderness in Midian but stretches into the place from where Moses has fled in Egypt; calling him back into a place of dreadful danger in order to bring about wholeness and peace.

The Hebrew people told this story to share their understanding that their God calls them to partake of the divine energy to remember their past of who and whose they really are, to struggle for justice and love in the present and to work with hope for a future which they may never see.

Holy Space is all around us who open our eyes to see and open our ears to hear the voice calling to our irrational side to be foolish enough to believe that they can make a difference in this world, not trusting in their own power and glory; to be delusional enough to put aside one’s own welfare as their chief priority.

 Every time I come to this lesson I am drawn back to Elizabeth Barrett Browning who said it best in her poem: Aurora Leigh:

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

This is what we do every week in our worship when we realize that this is more than one more social interaction but a place where we come together to do the irrational and to see and touch the connecting space between us where heaven intrudes as we remember who we are at the core of our being and ask for energy to do the things we are given to do for justice and love and to work for a future we cannot fully see.

Encountering the Flame that Does Not Consume (poem)

“I Am who I Am.”, said the God of the desert.

“I am not the one you want me to be.

I am beyond your imagination.

I am not A being at all.

I Am who I Am.”

I replied, “I am who I am but full of shadows”.

I cannot see or know the all of me.

I am beyond my own understanding.

At times act as non being.

But I am who I am.

I hear you calling me forth to claim fully me,

Inviting to go more deeply into you,

Listening to your heart’s beat,

Taking the place of mine,

As You Are in my I am

Asking You send Your light into my shadows,

So I may no longer have hiding places,

From non-consuming fiery love,

Cauterizing the past wounds,

Living into present Being.

Strengthen me under the shadow of you wings.

Teach me a joyful dance on Holy ground.

Lead me through the center of pain.

Of all Your so broken children,

Setting them and me free.”

Reflection for 2 Lent; Odyssey

Reflection for II Lent                                                 All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC

February 21, 2016                                                           Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18            Philippians 3:17-4:1    Luke 13:31-35             Psalm 27

 

Odyssey

The question I posed in the bulletin for mediation during the quiet time before the service is “Where are you on your spiritual journey of Lent?” I tend to see things as voyages a lot right now. When I was visiting my daughter earlier this month, I spent a great deal of time waiting and reading things like Homer’s Odyssey. My daughter had given me a Great Courses CD series of lectures on the Odyssey for Christmas and I had fallen behind in my studies, so in my quiet time there, I read a few different translations and a dramatic adaptation written by one of my son-in law’s professors at Northwestern and in which he appeared.

The Odyssey is about Odysseus and his journey, but it is also about all of the journeys of us frail creatures.  Homer says “Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than (hu)man.” In the story, the Gods do both help and hinder Odysseus, but the Gods do not cause most of the difficulties, as they warn:

Mortals are so quick to blame the gods: they say
that we devise their misery. But they
themselves - in their depravity - design
grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.

The Genesis lesson is about Abram being reassured by God on Abram’s life-long journey to find a place to call his own and live into the promise. The passage starts off with the central message of scripture, “Don't be afraid.” The Psalm tells us not to rush through the journey out of fear, but we are to “be strong and God shall comfort your heart* wait patiently for the LORD.” The Epistle lesson is to the Philippians who are on their journey of faith as Paul urges them to keep firm in their joyful faith, “Don't be afraid.” The Gospel lesson is about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem to fulfill his destiny. He is warned about Herod, but he rejects traveling with fear even as he knows his journey will take him into danger. He will tell others what he has heard God say to him, “Don't be afraid.”

Each of the stories is about living fearlessly into who we are on our life journeys; the purpose of all of these journeys is not the destination but the uncovering of the deeper meaning in ourselves. As T.S. Eliot says in Little Gidding, “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Our journeys are never straight lines but rather spirals going deeper and deeper until we come to the place where the Great “I am” of God dwells within the “I am” of each of us. “The Christ in me greets the Christ in you” we act out in each service when we exchange the Peace of Christ with each other and whenever we do ministry in and out of the church.

Every time I think I have reached the deepest destination of my spiritual journey, I find a new invitation to go deeper. I find those invitations when I realize that I am getting anxious about my own limitations of control over people, places, and things I cannot fix. When I reach the limits of my control, I come to the boundaries of my fear where I need to hear the central message “Don't be afraid.”

A clue to this invitation is in my dreams. There is a theme that keeps coming back in my dreams when I start to feel smug about how I have it made. In these dreams I am in a church building on my way to the main sanctuary to lead a service, or in a classroom building where I am to go to a lecture hall to teach, or in a theatre on my way to a stage, situations where there is one more hallway to walk down, but it turns into another and then another. Or, in another dream, there I am on second base in a baseball game and I am running to third and as I am rounding third heading for home plate, the distance gets longer and longer. I used to wake up in a turmoil of frustration about not reaching my goal, but now I realize these nightmares are my friends, telling me the truth that my deepest yearning to be united with God gets hijacked when I want to be God instead of placing myself in God's hands and heart. It is a besetting confusion of thinking that fear can only be put aside when I am in control, for the more I try to control, the more fear dominates me.

As I was reflecting on my own spiritual journey, I came across a poem, Journey Home, by Rabindranath Tagore, a late 19^th and early 20^th Century Nobel Prize winning poet from Bengal.

“The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my
voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'

The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand
streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'”

We are all on a journey, an odyssey; don’t be afraid.

Odyssey

Snowing it was, topping earlier ice as I went walking,

Yes, one step carefully, without hurry, and then another,

and more and so it goes; old man tentative steps rather

than the young man in a hurry posture, all risk mocking.

Except this time seems different because now listening,

hearing the earth shiver with delight as she welcoming

steps taken instead of hibernating sloth unquestioning.

Each step one more way of living into my christening.

Our odysseys ne’er seem to be journey of straight lines,

but spirals, twisting, so gyrating on to themselves until

reaching beginnings which some remembrances do fill

with the harvest of plans maturing into silky red wines.

Symbols poured out for us for the paths we off strayed

and eating bread symbols so that we will not be afraid.

Coming Out Of The Wilderness

A Reflection for I Lent                       All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC 

February 14, 2016                                Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Deuteronomy 26:1-11             Romans 10:8b-13       Luke 4:1-13     Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Coming Out of the Wilderness

One of the themes of the lessons for today that really resonated with me has to do with coming out of the wildernesses in our lives. The way out, the lessons suggest, is - to use the words of the 46th Psalm - to “Be still and know that the Lord is God”.

In Deuteronomy, the passage advises on how to give thanks for being able to enter into a place where the people can live free and grow. They had been slaves in Egypt and went into the wilderness to find a new way of living. They had been wandering for most of their lives, but now they have changed and come into an awareness that they have entered into a new kind of life. They are to be still and know that the Lord is God.

In the Psalm for today, the Psalmist is singing that we hear the invitation from the Lord to enter into a place of refuge.  In that place, we can enter into a new kind of creation where the relationship can change us and we can live free and grow. We are to be still and know that the Lord is God.

In the Romans passage, Paul is telling the church in Rome that in Christ there is a new kind of creation going on and that calls for a new kind of life. In others parts of the Letter to the Romans, Paul is saying that before they knew Christ they had been wandering, but since they have brought Christ into their lives, there is a whole new way of looking at the world. It is time now to live free and grow and to be still and know that the Lord is God.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus is in the wilderness and he is trying to find his true self. The temptations are: 1)to make the stones into bread and thereby view his own needs as the reason for his being,  2) to be the Ruler of the Kingdoms of the World and thereby find meaning in the performance of mastery over others, 3) to throw himself off the Temple and thereby impress others. He turns from those temptations and knows that he is to be still and know that the Lord is God, and he finds refuge and strength from God’s angels.

These are the temptations we all have as we grow up. We begin life being expelled from the world we once knew in the womb and we enter into a wilderness.   We have to learn a new way of living and meeting our own needs becomes the center of our lives. Babies cry when they need to be fed and gradually they learn how to manipulate their environment and get people to meet their needs. That is good - that is how the ego develops and we are able to see ourselves as  having the power to get our needs met, one way or another. Our worth is determined by what we are able to have or have control over.

The second step in life is to develop a mastery over people, places, and things. Here is where education comes in . I remember the words of my father as he encouraged me to  work hard in school so that I could be a success instead of a mere functionary.  He would say, “Life is a lot easier when you are standing on top of the ditch telling others how you want the ditch dug rather than being down in the ditch getting orders from someone else.” This is good, for our ego wants us to be masters of our universes. Our worth is determined by our performance.

The third temptation is to be impressive and show people all that we can do as our ego demands that people pay attention to us.  Our worth is determined by the opinions of others.

So far so good, except that when we sell ourselves out to judging our worth based on our possessions, performances, and the opinions of others, we lose sight of who we are and enter into a wilderness of being “human doings” instead of “human beings”.  We are strangers to ourselves. It is now time to be still and know that the Lord is God - not our possessions, not our accomplishments, and not the opinions of others.

Let me tell you about a church I visited  when I visited my daughter recently. I had been there on a previous visit years ago. It is a beautiful building and they have lots of money. I had walked a mile from my daughter’s house on a beautiful spring day and was impressed with the outside. Inside, while it was pretty, it was the early service and no one spoke to me - even the usher handing me the bulletin did not look at me. There was a quiet in the place, but there was no stillness; there was only sullenness, for they seemed not to attend the service to come out of the wildernesses of their souls, but they came bringing  their wildernesses with them  and nursing their resentments. The service was straightforward, and the sermon was a collection of lamentations about the way the world was going to hell in a handbasket and how the larger Episcopal Church was being sold out to moral libertines, scriptural illiterates, and theological midgets. There is an old saying that Scripture is the Sword of Truth; well, that priest  knew a heck of a lot of scripture, but he was using it as a club instead of a sword. There was so much anger in that place; I felt like I was in the wilderness.  And maybe it was my imagination, but when I came up for communion, I thought it was being given to me grudgingly because I had not proved my worth to receive it. I left muttering all the way to my daughter’s house because I surely was not in love and charity with my neighbor and perhaps was indeed unworthy to receive. I made the decision that I would never darken the doorway of that place ever again.

Over the years I would read about this church and its attempts to divide the congregation.  It was a sordid mess. After the dust had cleared, the Bishop brought in an interim to bring about healing, and he was followed by yet another interim.  During my recent visit was the last Sunday that this Interim was going to be there because the Rector-elect was on his way. On that particular Sunday I needed to go to a church for I was feeling like I was in a sort of wilderness with anxiety over some people I love. I need to be still and know that the Lord is God and thought the comforting presence of a religious ritual would help. So I set off in the snow to walk the mile to the church for the 8:00 service.  The building looked the same and yet everything was different.  I got there before the ushers got there, so I picked up my own bulletin and went to a pew. The quiet was there, but in place of sullen silence there was a peaceful stillness as I closed my eyes to meditate. I looked up and there was an Episcopal Franciscan Friar stopping at my pew, and he enfolded me in an embrace of welcome as if I had come home. The service followed that welcoming and I was treated to one of the best sermons I had ever heard.  The Interim related his experiences of being privileged to have served at this place where, 31 years ago as a senior in Seminary, he had taken his diocesan canonical exams. The Priest was a deeply spiritual man, and I could feel that the Lord was in that place. There was no need to have anxiety about what I possessed, or what I had accomplished, or if I needed to impress.  All I had to do was to be still and know that the Lord is God, and I was fed by angels who shared refuge and strength.

I stole the invitation to communion  and the blessing they used, which are in today’s bulletin - I only steal from the best. Later in the presentation after the service, the Senior Warden commented on how the interim always ended his sermons, and I remembered it from a Franciscan retreat years ago. So let me share that with you. Just repeat each line after me.

Be still and know that the Lord is God.

Be still and know the Lord

Be still and know

Be Still

Be

Coming Out of the Wilderness (poem)

Walking one anxious step in front of another

waiting to find places to make holy sacrifices

of weighty burden turning it to fragrant spices

when I was accosted by Franciscan brother

who without words started lifting burdened.

Come unto me you who are heavy laden

and I will give you rest from a faux Eden.

Be now still, turn wilderness to verdanted,

transform seeing scarcity into an abundance,

encourage shy participating in joyful dance.

Ash Wednesday Reflection 2016

A Reflection for Ash Wednesday                                  All Saints Church, Southern Shores, NC February  2016                                                          Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 58:1-12              2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10          Matthew 6:1-6,16-21       Psalm 103:8-14

Ash Wednesday Reflected (poem)

The ashes smudged saying the old cure.

Begins Lent, asking what and how to do?

The question is it really “Why?” Long ago

chocolate or meat were sacrifices de jour,

hoping for slight heaven hosannas choral.

Applause never came; respond by mating

resentment for feeling like fool for waiting

a church's permission go back to normal.

Yearly winter charades would again speed,

yearly grumbly agree to do the right deed

as Eliot's wrong reason a greatest treason

to make better person for a better season.

Yearly acting like a lion-less martyr failed.

sing, "Oh how I love Jesus" to that nailed

one; thinking no wonder they gave flack,

maybe this Lent will get him off my back.

Lent’s a time to look at a culture mentored

consuming while others pay more the price,

poverty their lives while we gobble the spice.

Can we make a fast for a just price centered

so cacao farmers can stop child slave labor?

What is wrong with bringing some more awe

in how we treat the beloved creatures of God.

Are they not all Christ’s, mine, your neighbor?

Suppose I stop being stuck as scorekeeper

pleasing an imagined celestial doorkeeper,

rather living a life where heaven’s on earth

as God’s love the only determiner of worth.

Let us stop business as usual starting Lent.

Now quest for a restoring justice now bent

as “Please God don’t let me be normal”

being a hymn we sing of a Lent eternal.

Views From Tranfiguration Mountain

A Reflection for Last Sunday of Epiphany                     All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC February 7, 2016                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Exodus 34: 29-35   Psalm 99    2^nd Corinthians 3:12- 4:2      Luke 9:28-4:3a

Views From Transfiguration Mountain

This is Mount Tabor, a suggested site of Transfiguration. but Transfiguration is anywhere.

 

I was taking a break from thinking about the Transfiguration Gospel story for today and I came across a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions...For the god
wants to know himself in you. 

 

God has this habit of speaking to me when I am not fully paying attention. I suddenly stopped where I had been going in looking at this story and realized that one way to see this story is to see it using Rilke’s words - Jesus taking his “practiced powers” to “span the chasm between the two (divine and human) contradictions” and the god knows Godself in Jesus. The light of God shines forth and the divine illumines the human shadow. Then when Jesus comes off the mountain he meets a man whose child is bound up in the darkness which they called a demon. Jesus brings healing by bringing his, using Rilke’s words, “great arch of unimagined bridges” to the moment, and the encounter with wholeness brings wholeness in the child.

Jesus comes into the world to do two things: 1) To show humans the face of God and 2) to show humans, created in the image of God, how to live fully into being human images of God. In his parables Jesus speaks to the former by saying “The Kingdom of God is like this . . .” and then he tells a story that shakes up our image of God by showing the love, freedom, and compassion of God rather than the capricious old man above the sky that punishes those mere humans who displease him. Jesus has as one part of his mission the continuation of the prophetic tradition calling for a replacement of the faraway distant God of fear with the indwelling Spirit of the loving creator and sustainer of the universe who is so accessible in every breath we take. When Jesus prays, he does not go through an elaborate flattering of the divine, but he starts off by saying “Abba”, which we translate as “Daddy”, an affectionate nickname to be only used in the family. He demonstrates that we are all the children of God, even our enemies, and we have the same loving parent. Jesus is working to reform a religion which has as its model a hierarchy of power under the rule of a tyrant who must be placated and replace it with an intentional community centered on the divine energy flowing through us. 

 

This religion of an “intentional community centered on the divine energy flowing through us” shows us a new way of being fully human, and Jesus shows not just with his words but in his very life how to be fully human in the image of God. Jesus demonstrates integrity between who we are at the core of our being and how we act in this world. We were created to be free, loving, and compassionate in the doctrine of original blessing. However, sometimes we get sidetracked and freedom is sacrificed to control, loving is tainted with fear of others, and compassion replaced by self-serving which we mislabel as original sin. Blessing is when we are dancing to the music of God in this life; sin is when we refuse to dance with God. To dance with God is not a series of steps but to let our true self be still enough to let the music guide us. Jazz musician Charlie Parker used to say, “If it ain’t in your heart; it ain’t in your horn.”

Let me go further: “freedom” is not freedom “from” but freedom “for”, and freedom must be channeled to do good. Channeling can easily be sidetracked to a dark side where we try to control the outcome and control others, heaping shame on ourselves and guilt on others if the perfect outcome is not achieved. The shame within ourselves is so uncomfortable that we push it down, and as a way of hiding from it from awareness, we project the shame and guilt on others. This shame, guilt, and thirst for control contaminates our relationships with others and our deeper self. Others become strangers to us and we become strangers to ourselves 

 

“Loving” is not approval, but sometimes we get it confused and withhold love from others and ourselves until we think they or we deserve that love. Without love as the basis for relationships with others and ourselves, we become suspicious and fear takes the place of love. When fear is a part of the relationship, compassion is replaced by the frantic search for something to make our anxiety go away, and we find ways to meet that emptiness with people, places, and things we can consume or control.

Without freedom, love, and compassion, we become like the demon possessed child in today’s Gospel story, being controlled by forces we are not able to understand, throwing ourselves down on the ruins of our lives. 

 

Jesus shows what a life of integrity between who we are at the core of our being, that which we call our soul, the places that the numinous lives within us, and the way we act in the world should look like; this can be given only by grace from a power greater than ourselves or as Rilke says, “a bright and purely granted achievement”. The transfiguration is the metaphorical demonstration of that integrity where the light of God’s indwelling spirit lives within us and radiates to the world around us.

The Transfiguration is not something that happened on a mountain a couple thousand years ago but is available here and now when we are able to have our true self come forward into the world, helping to create a community of trust and healing. As Rilke reminds us, “being swept along is not enough.” As followers of Jesus, we are the ones who go out into the world to bring the light of the Transfigured Christ to others and in the same way we are the children who need the light ourselves. 

 

Views From Transfiguration Mount (Poem)

Hiking to top of storied Mount Transfiguration,

looks down on where a stagnating violence be,

when fog came silently sliding in and I can see

contradiction within myself between core station

and what in my darkness I fear; light’s exposure.

Yet, fill me with your light that all that’s hidden

be radiantly cleansed as no fuller can be bidden.

First I must own it, naming it as mine own sure,

rather than see myself a victim. Tis much a lie

to give away what I do not first lay file a claim

Now, Mediterranean clouds fly to eastern plain

to deserts, bringing moisture to a ground so dry.

My unasked dew dries by that now unmasked Sol

makes a healing balm of Gilead for a deeper soul.