"John the beloved disciple in his old age On Jesus the Word" 



You would have me speak of Jesus, but how can I lure the passion-song of the world into a
hollowed reed? 

In every aspect of the day Jesus was aware of the Father. He beheld Him in the clouds and in
the shadows of the clouds that pass over the earth. He saw the Father's face reflected in the
quiet pools, and the faint print of His feet upon the sand; and He often closed His eyes to gaze
into the Holy Eyes. 

The night spoke to Him with the voice of the Father, and in solitude He heard the angel of the
Lord calling to Him. And when He stilled Himself to sleep He heard the whispering of the
heavens in His dreams. He was often happy with us, and He would call us brothers. 

Behold, He who was the first Word called us brothers, though we were but syllables uttered
yesterday. 

You ask why I call Him the first Word. 

Listen, and I will answer: In the beginning God moved in space, and out of His measureless
stirring the earth was born and the seasons thereof. 

Then God moved again, and life streamed forth, and the longing of life sought the height and
the depth and would have more of itself. 

Then God spoke thus, and His words were man, and man was a spirit begotten by God's Spirit.
And when God spoke thus, the Christ was His first Word and that Word was perfect; and when
Jesus of Nazareth came to the world the first Word was uttered unto us and the sound was
made flesh and blood. 

Jesus the Anointed was the first Word of God uttered unto man, even as if an apple tree in an
orchard should bud and blossom a day before the other trees. And in God's orchard that day
was an aeon. We are all sons and daughters of the Most High, but the Anointed One was His
first-born, who dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and He walked among us and we
beheld Him. 

All this I say that you may inderstand not only in the mind but rather in the spirit. The mind
weighs and measures but it is the spirit that reaches the heart of life and embraces the secret;
and the seed of the spirit is deathless. 

The wind may blow and then cease, and the sea shall swell and then weary, but the heart of
life is a sphere quiet and 
serene, and the star that shines therein is fixed for evermore.