Below is a poem written by my 9 year old daughter, Calista, a sensitive soul and one of my best friends ever. I say that because I can relate to her more than I can relate to most people. I guess it is similar to my relationship with my own mother. Our relationship transcends familial bonds. In a lot of ways I think if we were to relate to one another simply in that way, it would actually place a limitation on our ability to learn and grow together. Of course I respect my mother according to certain societal prescriptions and I ask the same of my daughter for me.
However, from a spiritual perspective, I understand that I cannot limit our ability to teach one another simply because my mother was born before me and I was born before my daughter. After all, we are more than simply these corporeal expressions traveling through time. The greater part of us is eternal–beyond time and therefore each of us has at our disposal access to the infinite wisdom of our Source, our Creator with whom we eternally. From this perspective, as one whose ideal is to live a life that expresses the “On Earth as it is in Heaven” design, I’d be a fool not to see every being as a potential gateway to greater awareness of God’s grace and revelation.
C.S. Lewis said:
“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity or with the Present–either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”
I believe that this is the essence of what Calista’s poem conveys and it is to this awareness that I am convicted. Children are very present centered beings. If what Brother Lewis is saying is accurate–and I believe it is–then this aspect of how they encounter the world is precisely why Jesus said that the entrance to the kingdom must be approached as a child.
When seduced by the illusion of temporality, we place a premium on chronological order–the first is the first and the last is the last. In realm of the eternal the first can be the last and the last can be the first, what once was may never be and what has never been can be, and the beginning and the end are One. I say this to say that the Divine Order is not limited to linearity. Thus is the way of the eternal. And so in this moment out of which I am being reborn, I am hoping to follow my daughter in remembering that I too am from the moments where I am most present.
Where I’m From
by Calista Monterra FitzSilva
I am from my little sister’s sweet little giggles
when I tickle her and her big smiles,
Her brown eyes as brown as a grizzly bear’s fur.
I am from my little sister pulling my hair
And trying to talk and crying over her pacifier
I’m from my mom’s sweet banana bread
Warm out of the oven, the steam rising
The chocolate chips melt into chocolate sauce.
I’m from my grandmother’s magnificent apple pie on Thanksgiving eve.
And the fluffy pancakes she makes when I visit her and my grandpa
I am from the sweet apple cider we sipped
before we skied down the mountain in Boston, Massachusetts
I would fly down the mountain, woosh!
The wind blowing in my face.
I am from the salty air of Aruba
as the ocean splashes up on me and soaks me
I am from early Christmas mornings
when the outside world is cold and damp
I’m from climbing the huge rock in my cousin’s backyard
and finding shiny rocks
I am from these moments.
© Copyright 2017 Pedro Silva and Calista FitzSilva
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