The soft-sweet safe-keeping that lingers inside the uneven drip-fall of a Cape mist-rain establishes a reassurance that binds everything within the reach of a room, or a heart, to this luminous experience. The rain's own claim upon experience — the drawing-in of human feeling to deepen its own. An experience each of us takes in differently.

For the hurried, a reason to remember the umbrella; for the worried, a reason for gratitude; for the sensitive, a reason for contemplation and for surrender to the moment. One incident, many interpretations.

The referee who blows his whistle receives the same range of differing reactions to this sharp expression of authority when it suddenly interrupts reality. The wide spectrum from relief to astonishment to perhaps rage becomes, all at once, the playing field on which emotional experience then finds expression.

The more trapped you are inside the material dimension, where your five senses steer and control your emotional experience, the more fascinated you will be with drama. Because the one-dimensional perception of the senses thrives on what is shallow and superficial. This reflex behaviour of the soul is an offence to the spirit.

The spirit is fed from eternity with an insatiable appetite for timelessness. In other words, the material or the sensory will be indigestible to it. The spirit must be supported with the truth — without that, it falls silent. Because without truth, integrity cannot establish itself. No assumption, no prophecy and no intuition will pass the test of time without integrity in its bearer. All self-deception rests on this. The truth in your heart and the truth in your thoughts must become one and harmonise with the truth in your actions. This requires a self-examination we must subject ourselves to daily. It is the yardstick against which we must measure all bearers of news and the motives of all who lay claim to our money, our time and our energy.

Whether it is an individual or a community (a collective individual), the spiritual insight and maturity of that person or group will always be shown by their self-absorbed intensity with what is temporary and banal. It is a cheap way of living. Because your own spirit does not have to pay the price of access to a better insight gained from a wider view. Understanding, kindliness and mercy are inaccessible and are not commodities on this level of life. The cravings of the five senses are the only options displayed in the shop windows for the soul. What else can you expect if you decide to stay on the ground floor for the rest of your spiritual life? All you see are your neighbours. If you step outside you also only see people. A captive reality, focused on the intrigues of everything behind closed doors.

The more you (or the group) manage, in obedience to the heavenly commission, to direct your thoughts to heavenly realities, the less the glue and the pulling-power of the sensory and the superficial become. Detail loses its impact, and patterns that are important become visible. As in the case of the higher up you move in a building, the further and the more you get to see. People on the ground floor have no idea of the sea, the mountains, the forests or the possibilities of the immediate surroundings. The reason: height.

We will have to make a conscious choice if we want to leave the ground floor (of insight) in order to raise our own experience and that of our community higher (to the penthouse on the topmost floor), where the view is a given. But then our own truth will have to be a settled matter. Our town's truth also. This journey without distance happens between your heart and your thoughts. Then we will see, with the spiritual eye, the vistas that surround our town — in faith. Here the rent will be much more expensive, but it guarantees peace and simplicity, because the racket of the masses and the cheap entertainments that waste your time cannot afford the rent. And so you leave these time-wasters behind. You are safeguarded against emotional burglars and everything that drains you empty, there where the origins of your spiritual life are.

The merciful compassion hidden inside a soft mist-rain is the same mercy that must come down in showers into hearts to relieve them before heavenly insight takes us higher. We must first feed the spiritual terrain of our town so that better immunity can stop the infection and so that pathogens no longer find a receptive landing place. Then we will have to bind the wounds of our town so that they no longer lie open for the flies to alight on. Instead of allowing ourselves to become part of conversations that pin this dynamic even more firmly into the spiritual earth of our town, we proclaim what we see from the Penthouse … vistas, possibilities and yet more possibilities … invisible to everyone on the ground floor. Listen to this compassionate prayer (The Sea) by Michel Quoist, which puts it so beautifully:

Lord, I saw the sea attacking the rocks, sombre and raging. From afar the waves gained momentum. High and proud, they leapt, jostling one another to be the first to strike. When the white foam drew back, leaving the rock clear, they gathered themselves to rush forward again.

The other day I saw the sea, calm and serene. The waves came from afar, creeping, not to draw attention. Quietly holding hands, they slipped noiselessly and stretched at full length on the sand, to touch the shore with the tips of their beautiful, soft fingers. The sun gently caressed them, and they generously returned streams of light.

Lord, grant that I may avoid useless quarrels that tire and wound without achieving results. Keep me from these angry outbursts that draw attention but leave one uselessly weakened. Keep me from wanting always to outstrip others in my conceit, crushing those in my way. Wipe from my face the look of dark, dominating anger. Rather, Lord, grant that I may live my days calmly and fully as the sea slowly covers the whole shore.

Make me humble like the sea, as, silently and gently, it spreads out, unnoticed. May I wait for my brothers and match my pace to theirs, that I may move upward with them. Grant me the triumphant perseverance of the waters. May each of my retreats turn into an advance. Give my face the light of clear waters. Give my soul the whiteness of foam. Illumine my life that it may sing like sunbeams on the surface of the sea. But above all, Lord, may I not keep this light for myself, and may all those who come near me return home eager to bathe in your eternal grace.

Groete Amanda Kreitzer