In Search of Wisdom: Chapter 6

FAREWELL

We pondered on the Fifteen Secrets as we walked, and at last Janet said:
“Why did each Secret have a special angel?”

Our guide looked very pleased because she had asked this question, as though he had been longing to tell us all the time.

“Each angel has a Secret, just as each angel has a part of the Father’s Name. The two are one.”
“How?” I asked.

“When each angel is given his name which is part of the Father’s,” our guide continued, “he is also given one of the Fifteen Secrets on which to meditate (or ‘feed’) for all eternity.”

“For all eternity!” Janet interrupted. “Would this one Secret occupy him for always?”

“Not only occupy him, but feed and satisfy him for ever,” insisted our guide. “Remember that each Secret is a part of what God is. Thus, if all the angels came together at one time and each told to the others both his name and his Secret, then at last would the Father be known.”

This stupendous idea rendered us speechless for a while. Janet and I groped after it in our minds, trying to hold it in that still centre where alone it could be explored. It continually eluded us, however, so that we could only take a fleeting grasp of it, as a hand on the tail of a leaping fish.
At last I asked softly:
“Will it ever be that the angels will all meet together, to tell their names and their Secrets?”

“Yes.” Our guide’s voice was low.

“Then will the Father be known ?”

“Yes. He will indeed be known.”

“When will that be?” Janet whispered.

“When all the sheaves are gathered in,” said the angel solemnly, “when the scattered lambs are one flock, when the seeds that have fallen into the ground shall be grown, and their fruit is ripe, when-”
His voice died away as it did when he told Reg his name, and then I knew that what we had asked was too great for our understanding.

“If the angels know only one of the Secrets,” Janet said at last, “how is it that we were told them all?”

Our guide smiled again as though he were pleased with our deep thinking.
“You were ‘told’ the Secrets, but they were not ‘open’ to you as they are to the angels. You were told the Secrets, but you were not told the angels’ names.”

“Then if we had been told both the Secrets and the names-”

“Yes,” said the angel. There was a finality about his voice that
told us we must ask no more …

“Now,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I must bid you farewell. Have you enjoyed being my students?”
“Farewell?” I gasped, and Janet said almost reproachfully: “Somehow I thought you would always be with us.”
Our guide laughed.

“Well, you have answered my question. Evidently you have enjoyed my teaching!”

“Of course we have,” I exclaimed, “but why must you go away? What shall we do?”

“Did you not get on very well before I came to you?” he asked quizzically.
“Yes, but-”

“Oh, you will be all right,” he broke in. “As a matter of fact, invitations are speeding toward you, now, from every direction. There is to be a picnic in the Plane Between.”

“A picnic!” Janet and I could not restrain our laughter. The sudden changes from deep teaching and much solemnity to little treats and holidays were impossible to get used to. They always surprised us.

“It is the wise provision of Heaven,” our guide said, answering our thoughts. “Meat is not fed continually to the little ones of Heaven’s realm.”

He clasped our shoulders affectionately, then gave us a farewell blessing and was gone.

“We did not ask if we would ever see him again.” Janet’s voice was troubled as we watched him winging off into the far distance.

“We will contact him all right,” I reassured her. “Sometime when his mental veil is raised we will send him an invitation too.”

At that moment our own invitations began to arrive, and, as we wheeled off on the great journey, we compared notes blissfully. Stephen and James were urgently demanding our presence, and Janet said Rose and Greig were assuring her it was a very special occasion.

“No wonder,” I commented. “This will be the first time we have seen them since they were united for eternity.”

“So it will.” Janet’s face glowed. “They will be wearing the Golden Sash – and how happy they will be!”

Suddenly another message pressed upon my mind. It was Arthur, and he, too, was on his way.

“What a number of old friends we will meet,” Janet exulted. “David, Robbie and Reg will be there, too.”

We had much to speak of as we sped on our way. Since we had met our angel-teacher we had constantly absorbed the profound truths of the higher planes. Now to rest and speak of them seemed to impress them more deeply on our minds. We thought again of what the angel had said-that the sudden changes from higher to lower planes were a wise provision of Heaven, and we realised its truth to the full.

“I feel as though I could not grasp another grain of wisdom just now,” Janet confessed.

“I shall follow my earth-plan and ‘be little’,” I announced. ‘Do you remember how I used to do that when I had become tense with much study?”

“You used to abandon yourself to playing with the cat for hours on end !”Janet laughed. “It was a very effective plan, too, for all the tenseness melted away and then you came back to the wisdom refreshed. We will both follow it and play hard in the Plane Between !”