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richcmather

The Holy Instant (Inspired by ACIM - A Course In Miracles)

Updated: May 29, 2024






By Richard Mather



Image taken from The Holy Instant by Richard Mather
Cain slaying Abel, by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1600. Text is an excerpt from The Holy Instant by Richard Mather

The beginning is at nought: an arid place

of aerated concrete. A tower goes

to ruin, down, falling down, it falls,

it tumbles down. If colour is a grey shade,

then concrete is the colour of dryness

and separation. Nothing grows here

but neon-graven flashing images

of naked murder made of angry language.

Endless night unfolds a sky of darknesses

as pale lovers lie stymied, unblossomed

beneath unlit stars and a secret moon.

An ancient hate comes for us. It’s brother

versus brother and blood cries out shrill

as I repair to my self-made tunnel

to accuse an other who fault-festers

in his self-made tunnel, with every channel

of speech open to signal distortion,

interference and grey noise. Says big mouth

through clenched teeth: ‘Vengeance is mine alone,

for the wicked ones will surely perish’.

(The ego is always the first to speak

and the last to understand, says the Voice

for God.) ‘Wait’, says another, ‘Let us wait

for new eyes so we can far better see’.

Hours, like aeons, pass creepingly slow.

And then arrives the miracle of vision:

Cain the Convict is delivered up to

the judge’s quarters made of mirrors

and made to face himself. His own image

condemns him. ‘Your sacrifice is demanded’,

says his reflection. ‘The sentence of death

is passed and it cannot be repealed’.

But Abel, standing by a sun-washed window,

smiling as love often does when the spirits

are favourable, declares,‘Son of God,

you are innocent. Unmurdered I am.

I did not die. It was a nightmare, that’s all,

in Father Adam's fallen fevered brain’.

Cain is seen in new light and so are you.

Your pure soul, like mine, is seen afresh.

And in this holy instant when the mind

is still all our loveless thoughts are undone.

What’s arrested is freed and the words

we use mean what they say, and what they say

means well, and all kinds of forgivenesses

like so many flowers full-petalled upshoot

from the earth, in place of all those towers

that crumbled into wretched decay,

and joy’s oasis blooms green under dew

from a blue sky. For thine is the kingdom.

Grey’s no more a colour than sadness is,

and sadness is no more a dream than time is.


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