Sitting in the Kingdom of Heaven

Sitting In the Kingdom of Heaven

I sat in the Kingdom of Heaven today

And had tea and biscuits

With Jesus and the Angels;

St. Teresa of Avila, who wore red slippers

And asked for extra honey with her biscuit, please;

And St. Brighid, who brought jam and her weaving,

For she liked to stay busy.

Bird songs and the roar of hummingbird wings

Wrapped our joyful chatter

In glorious praise anthems,

Holding us in their rhythm of harmony

As we munched our snack

And clinked our tea cups

From dainty china dishes I’d carefully unwrapped

From a long-ago childhood memory.

There were red roses on the white tea cups

Just like the roses in the garden

Where we supped,

Along with the hummingbirds

Who fed our Souls with their musical wings,

As we fed them honey nectar from our tea cups

And threw biscuit crumbs to the birds

To thank them for their love songs.

It was a glorious day in the Kingdom of Heaven,

Full of life after a fresh summer rain ~

Hints of the most recent rainbow

Still lingering in the air

And on the wings and breasts of the song birds.

Jesus didn’t seem to mind

My childish questions …

We talked easily ~

He seemed as if a big brother ~

One wizened from many journeys …

Perhaps One who had just returned

Home

For a lingering visit

To see His little sister,

To check up on her and make sure

All was well with her

As she struggled with her childish ways.

The Angels at the table

Sprang to life,

Leaping off photographs of Light Beings that lay next to me,

Spiraling into fullness from my childish imagination,

Joining the stone angel who was likewise animating

From the inanimate devotional object that too long

Sat on my altar shelf.

(Photos of Light Beings by Sharon Payne, Waco, TX)

They joined into the conversation just as easily,

As if gentle Guides …

There to whisper advice,

To urge me to Pay Attention!

And to sometimes h-o-l-d  m-y  t-o-n-g-u-e

At opportune moments.

St. Brighid joined in close,

Showing me secret signs and symbols,

Which Ancient Mother Earth

Once showed her long ago.

She fed my childish curiosity

And urged me to protect

Pieces of my childish innocence

In secret, hidden pockets of my Inner Being.

St. Teresa begged me to laugh heartily

And to pray often ~

Or was it to pray heartily

And to laugh often?

I got confused,

Because she seemed so deliriously Joyful!

And in the same moment

Enraptured in a state of Prayer-FULL-ness

That I cannot imagine

In my childishness

To ever attain.

But somehow, anything seemed possible,

There at that tea-and-biscuits table

With St. Teresa, St. Brighid, Jesus and the Angels …

In fact, Everything seemed possible!

Because it was, after all,

The Kingdom of Heaven …

Where different Laws govern ~

Laws I didn’t have to understand yet ...

For I was just a child

Having imaginary tea and biscuits,

Playing with wild birds and hummingbirds,

Listening to celestial music

Made of birdsongs and bird wings,

And somehow knowing,

As I ate biscuits and jam

And drank tea with honey …

That All I truly need

To be fully nourished

In The Kingdom of Heaven

Is to draw deep from the Breath of God ~

For It alone

Will Feed the Holy Flame Within

And keep my Divine Spark

Ever burning.

That was part of what Jesus taught me …

What the Angels whispered …

What St. Brighid nudged me to see in the signs and symbols …

What St. Teresa begged me to hear

Through the laughter and the prayers …

As we sat together around that table

With our Rose tea cups, drinking,

Eating, talking, whispering, and

Laughing.

Or maybe it was all the

Imaginings of a child …

Playing …

Dreaming it all up …

Confusing the Imaginal Realm

For Reality.

For either

I sat in the Kingdom of Heaven today

And had tea and biscuits

With Jesus, St. Brighid, St. Teresa of Avila, and the Angels,

Or I did not.

~ By Karen Wood

(written late August 2011 in Angel Fire, N.M.)