Can I start to put into words experience that cannot be named? To express the inexpressible mystery? To describe the beauty of this place or capture the gift so freely given?
Outside my door the birds sing forth their symphony of praise; never ending but always new. Cockerels crow heralding this new, bright day. The river tumbles down, washing over rocks and stones. Each time I pause to listen, it is still there. The moment is always present, never the same. Ngatiawa nestles in the valley. Clouds cling to the hills above us, mist drifting over the steep slopes. All around a jamboree of leaves and branches jostles up from the forest floor. Each shrub, each fern, each tree pushing the others aside in their enthusiasm to get to the light. Bright flowers – white, ultramarine, crimson, yellow – show off their exuberant palette. ‘Look at me’ they shout.
What is it all about – this beauty; this never-ending beauty? Wherefore this stillness, this cacophony of silence? For what purpose this daily expression of joy and life?
And why am I so privileged to enter into it? To let my heart be still. And sing.
The ultimate meaning and purpose of life cannot be expressed, cannot properly be thought. It is present everywhere, in everything, yet is always escapes our grasp. It is the ground of all existence, that from which all things come, to which all things return, but which never appears. It is ‘within’ all things, ‘above’ all things, ‘beyond’ all things, but it cannot be identified with anything. Without it nothing could exist, without it nothing can be known… We speak of ‘God’, but this also is only a name for this inexpressible mystery.’
Bede Griffiths