The Fierce Embrace

An anonymous leper, one with no name, opened his arms to Francis and invited him into a fierce embrace. From that moment Francis states he was filled with the love of God. His whole life reflected that passionate love.

The anonymous one is always with us in the secret spaces of our hearts lurking behind rocks and in the crevasses of the world we inhabit.

We often find difficulty in acknowledging his presence, cringing to avoid him even in our dreams. And yet he reaches out to us in compassion and bestows the gift of transformation.

In that fierce embrace something utterly new and unheard of is created, a mysterious third.

He called to Jesus from the side of the road. He walked before Buddha in a Brahmin field. Heyoka, backwards clown of the universe, bodhisatva of compassion, moneychanger of the world, dancing among the bones of the dead, he separates illusion and delusion from ultimate reality.

Call him leper, outcast, enemy, madman, hidden self.

The initiator, the quickener, everywhere hidden and right before our eyes.