The Speech of the Grail

Only as he begins to “leave” them — to transform raw yearning for the heights into a clear relationship to God and to temper dogged determination with a trust that he does not have to do everything himself — will his circuitous wanderings develop direction and lead to his goal.

The most conscientious way to honor one's father and mother is to “leave” them: to accept and understand, with gratitude, what has come through them and to take those motifs to their next level of expression.

Until a person has experienced failure, brokenness, fear, emptiness and alienation, the rigors of the initiatory path will not appeal.

the Grail cannot be owned or possessed. Instead, it must be served. It calls to itself those who are worthy to serve it. And worthiness for this service shines through the person's speaking.

what has been absorbed in the family matrix forms much of the basis for one's thoughts, feelings, actions. Uncovering these unexamined inner patterns incorporated during childhood and then starting to question their appropriateness and truth, this is the beginning of the “leaving” to which Christ and Wolfram refer.

People who achieve lasting worldly success rarely choose to undertake the inner quest, the very first stage of which involves being stripped down, made to appear a “poor fool.” This is perhaps why Christ says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

Christ promises that, when two or more are gathered in His name, He will be present. Communion in dialogue both requires and creates the willingness to relate to self and other as “thou.” “Thou” is then felt to be inside and outside simultaneously “Thou” is the “presence” or the “love” that manifests in communication which is communion.14

Those on the path toward the speech of the Grail, however, are called particularly to expression through the spoken word. For them, the spoken word is like the sonar soundings of whales and dolphins. Through speaking, they come to know themselves and others — and to feel known.

The Grail journey supports self-definition. Another word we might use now for this virtue is “integrity.” When a person can say “Here I stand” and mean it, he or she exhibits a forthrightness strong enough that “never against hardness was it broken,” as Wolfram says.