Salutation #171

The First Day,
God spoke Light
and everything in everything
and all that is in all
became for Him.



(The First Day)

Truth
imparts form to the formless.
Knowledge is made meaningful because of it.
Formlessness creates form.
Form allows knowledge to be studied.
The understanding of knowledge is the labor of science.
But the labor of Man is to know the Truth.

Man through his labor learns knowledge.
For knowledge is the reward of study.
He receives it only through his learning
and is taught to his mind only because
it has preceded his being.

For all knowledge have existed before Man
and is possessed by him according to his labors,
it is given him only for a time - and passes away forever.

It is vanity to love knowledge for knowledge alone is vanity.

The learned profit not without a love of learning
and keep it not if they were wise.
For the profit of learning
lies not in an understanding of knowledge
but in an understanding of the truth.

He is one who sees the field
and knows the treasure that is hidden within
and so he sells everything he owned to buy the field
that he may cherish it forever.

Knowledge is received but truth is sought -
one is the reward of virtue, and the other a grace of faith.
All knowledge passes away, it is like time - a thing borrowed,
but the truth once possessed is possessed forever.

Happy those who possess the truth!
They are those whose spirits are poor
who in their poverty shall inherit the earth.

Knowledge is burdensome yet
when placed in the service of the truth
become easy and light.

Knowledge profits not the soul yet
when understood in the truth
is the gain of wisdom.

Science profits not the man yet
when understood in the truth
is the gain of all men.

For all knowledge
that is kept like a treasure rots -
its everlasting value lies in the giving away,
ever like tears shed for love of others
ever like a light shone in the darkness of the night -
but the wisdom of this freedom
shall ever return to thee, darling Starshine,
for ever by the grace of God,
truth shall set men free.
---<--@

Salutation #46

(The Wisdom of Learning)

We are - because -

we have come to know who we are not.

This is why we must ask our questions

sincerely seeking for answers.

For when we learn any truth,

we do not learn to use it - unless -

we are led by an understanding

of our need of it.

We become wise

not by the conception of what we know how to do

- but by the sheer weight -

of what we know we ought not to do.

Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.

We become wise - only -

when we become broken enough

by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.

Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.

For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Or we could learn to listen, to ponder and to observe -

To be able to surrender a measure

of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,

submit our independence to their discipline

and strive to remain in the humility of our youth

- the agelessness of little children -

to be able to absorb their constant teaching.

Fear of the instruments of the LORD

must also lead to a reverence of Him.

For wisdom that is learned

and wisdom that is transmitted

are one and the same thing.

In the former,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to never trust.

And in the latter,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to trust.

Both of these - being those things -

that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.

Such is the condition of our exile!

For if our bliss is to never know danger,

to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.

The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.

And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.

For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -

as all our learning must eventually disappear

from the confines of both mind and heart

to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.

All knowledge is a giving that begins with God

and a receiving that must end forever in God.

All our learning is nothing we can possess.

All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.

We possess it for a while as a means to find our way

and then we must return it - again and again -

to the LORD Who possesses all means.

Indeed,

learning that does not lead to wisdom

is like water that never flows - without purpose -

and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.

All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.

For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -

must be something we forever give away.

---<--@