Editorial June 29, 1981 Issue

Sacred consciousness

NATHAN A. TALBOT

A small rocky island. Desolate. Uninviting. And yet it was there, on Patmos, that St. John envisioned the new heaven, the new earth. Significant events occur in such unlikely places.

In many ways, limited human consciousness may seem like a small rocky island; a bantam piece of mental geography in a sea of materialism. And yet it is precisely here that something momentous takes place. The barrenness of matter doesn't encourage this event. It is fostered, instead, within the richness of a consciousness reborn through spiritual illumination. This is where John caught his view of reality. This is where we discern ours. Only here do we perceive perfection—God's infinite goodness, man's flawless purity as Spirit's expression. Nevertheless, there is a major difference between reading or talking about the perfection of God and His creation, and actually envisioning and demonstrating it.

When will we see what John saw? we may wonder. The Pharisees pressed Christ Jesus for an answer as to just when the kingdom of God would come. Rather than offer a timetable, Jesus responded, "Behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:21. Instead of endlessly surveying and exploring a parched little island of material existence, or the sea that it sits in, we too need to behold, look within consciousness, where the action of the Christ reveals the presence of God's kingdom.

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The zeal to win
June 29, 1981
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