The Honored Guest

Shms. Ad hoc name for it. It moves around, doesn’t it. Moves all over the place. Soul, heart, mind, spirit. It’s all of these aspects. These prospects. These views. These forms. These shapes. These avatars. These states. These spins. These quarks. These purely theoretical essences we know must be here but haven’t ever seen. These various constituents. These leading members of the congress that is us. These constructs that in concert describe something essential in us, that once excised leave only the equipment, the vehicle of this congress of essences or this essence of our congress. The husk. The mechanism. The living flesh manifestation of this. This.

This phantom. This ghost that is principally a traveler. A pilgrim. An Honored Guest that is both us and not us. That is one of us and a stranger. That visits, looking out through the windows of our eyes with us, sharing with us the world. Sharing with us our bodies, our breathing, our seeing, our hearing, our touching, our tasting, our smelling, our thinking, our traveling, and so forth.

This Honored Guest who is both who we know and do not know. Who we see ourselves in and not in. Who we see the-other-who-is-not-God in and not in. Who we see God in and not in.

Who is both strange and familiar. Who is both enemy and Counselor. Who is neither enemy nor Counselor.

Who wanders about in the houses of our beings, speaking. Singing. Noticing. Requesting. Demanding. Commenting. Offering. And so forth.

Who is both the Honored Guest in the houses of our beings and the Homeowner. Who is both the Honored Guest and the Dishonored Guest. Who is neither.

The Guest for whom we must prepare meals every day. The Guest for whom we must, like a housekeeper in a hotel, wash all the linens and towels every day.

The Guest for whom nothing is too good. The Guest for whom there is no tomorrow. For whom there is only today and today and today. Who only really knows the now.

A Guest who has come from somewhere and is going somewhere. Who will leave any day, but who does not leave. Who stays and stays. Whose presence is trying to us all but who nevertheless stays. Who perhaps outstays our welcome. Our patience. Our desire. Our good graces.

A Guest who is always gracious and never gracious. A Guest who has only just arrived and now makes ready to leave. A Homeowner who tries to throw the Guest out, but the Guest won’t leave. Ever. A Homeowner who tries to make the Guest as comfortable as possible.

A Guest who knows people in high places. Who has a great deal of pull in the wider world. Who can make things happen. Whose bias is for action.

A Guest who isn’t known at all in the world. Who has no interest in the world. Who is content to meditate upon the sunsets, the sunrises, the breeze through the grass. The color of the sky. The light as it makes its way across the yard and through the house.

A Guest who would rather feel more at home. A Guest who feels completely at home. So much so that the Guest thinks he is the Homeowner. And who knows. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he is principally the Homeowner and only feels like a Guest in his own home. Perhaps he is the Homeowner and the Guest.

The Guest is a he. The Guest is a she. The Guest is whatever he or she wants to be. The Guest changes from moment to moment. There is nothing sure about this Guest, not even the fact that he or she is a Guest. Perhaps he or she lives here. Perhaps he or she isn’t traveling at all. Perhaps he or she has lived here for all time. Perhaps he or she has just arrived and will leave in the next few moments.

Perhaps he or she has just arrived from Yosemite or New York or Mars or heaven. Or perhaps he or she is about to leave for one of those places.

One never knows. One is always asking the Guest questions. Sometimes the Guest answers and sometimes not. Sometimes the Guest is mistaken and sometimes not. Sometimes the Guest tells the truth and sometimes not.

One thing that is constant, however, is that this Guest seems holy. Hence the reason for the Guest being called the Honored Guest.

One thing that is inconstant, however, is that this Guest seems holy. Hence the reason for the Guest being called the Dishonored Guest.

The Guest is emotional in the extreme. The Guest is rational in the extreme.

The Guest is frantic. The Guest is calm.

The Guest is demanding and judgmental. The Guest is forgiving and gracious.

The Guest reads a great many books and therefore is wise. The Guest reads nothing and only watches TV.

The Guest is lazy as a sleeper. The Guest is energetic as a tightrope walker.

Wherever one goes in one’s house, there is the Guest. There is the Guest. There is the Guest.

The Guest that is a congress, really. The Guest that is both Proprietor and Guest. The Guest that is oneself and not oneself. The Guest that is both good and evil. The Guest that is wholly good. The Guest that is wholly evil. The Guest that is meek. The Guest that is overweening. The Guest that is perfect. The Guest that is flawed. The Guest that is divine. The Guest that is human.

The Guest that puts on various costumes. That dresses this way and that. That has an infinite number of costumes in the infinite luggage that is piled in the basement. The Guest that is a shape changer. That pretends he is other people. That is a model for other people’s minds. That is the mind of others and the Other. The Guest that seems different. The Guest that seems similar. Every time he or she enters a room. Every blinking time he or she enters the room. Every stinking time one blinks one’s eyes and enters a room. Or doesn’t enter a room.

This Guest appears or disappears.

Occasionally, the Guest becomes. Or manifests, I should say. A light. A gentle light. A warm gentle light. Or perhaps a bright, warm, ungentle light. A light with great heat in it. A white light. A bit of the sun here on earth, just as close as can be. Right here. Burning. Burning. Until tears fill one’s eyes or one’s eyes want to fill with tears. Until they ache to fill with tears. Until something feels like it would burst from oneself in wonder and joy. Or in sorrow and sadness. Or all of these. At once. Like a nucleating star in the realm of form and emotion. In the realm of thought and spirit. An event within the house occupied by the Honored Guest. A light that is the Guest himself and that seems suddenly to swell to enlighten the whole world.

And this is the Guest we think we know. This is the Guest we actually want as the only guest in our house. This last Guest. This first Guest. And if there have been other guests along the way masquerading as this Guest, they are now relegated to the outbuildings and the ditches on the edge of the property. Relegated to the highways leading away from the property, perhaps.

This. This, we are thinking. Yes. This Guest with the sun itself in him. And the moon and the stars and the rich deep black of the space between the stars. And the infinite expanse of all that is outside this space. This time. This verse. This universe. This Guest. Yes. This Guest is the guest we had in mind all along.