The only flight path to Heaven is under the radar
Leaving all behind but your entourage of angels
Unseen and silent slip away, slip away
All you can carry with you is a wing full of wind
And to everything else you must be a stranger
Slip away, slip away
Unseen and silent, slip away
Be oppressed and afflicted and for goodness’ sake silent
Spend your words like treasure and your treasure like words
Unseen and silent slip away, slip away
Keep the word where your life is hidden until that day
And wait until a simple, “Well done” can be heard
Slip away, slip away
Unseen and silent, slip away
A voluminous silence unuttered by the spirit
A light foolishly kept hid to yourself by the bushel
Unseen and silent slip away, slip away
Between a hard place and the rock that is higher than I
The place where the pilgrim soul desires to dwell
Slip away, slip away
Unseen and silent, slip away
There is just one who will look for you wherever you go
In the meantime you should try to keep your profile low
Unseen and silent, slip away
Slip away, slip away
Unseen and silent, slip away
- The previous parts of this series, Climbing the Ladder on Trochaic Feet, can be found here: http://trochaicfeet.blogspot.com/
- This poem is my impression of Step 3 paragraph 1:
Step 3
On Exile or Pilgrimage (2)
3.1
Exile means that we leave forever everything in our own country that prevents us from reaching the goal of the religious life. Exile means modest manners, wisdom which remains unknown, prudence not recognized as such by most, a hidden life, an invisible intention, unseen meditation, desire for humiliation, longing for hardship, constant determination to love God, abundance of charity, renunciation of vainglory, depth of silence.(2) This is a double translation for a single Greek word xeniteia which means ‘living as a stranger’ (not necessarily as a vagrant) and might be translated ‘unworldliness’. But several considerations, notably paragraphs 6 and 22 of this chapter, have led me to think that in our author’s time the word contained a notion of movement also, and might be rendered ‘pilgrimage’. However, in the text we have kept to the word ‘exile’.