April at the Center

“April is the cruelest month”* at the Center. It turns barren, thoughtful, deep silent nights into a musical soiree of magical creatures waking from the depths of the forest. Leaves and flowers spurt out from desire and memory hums songs in nature’s praise. Spring drops upon the ambushed spaces; where no one knew flowers ever existed, blanketing vines of luscious gems appear and the fragrant trance of azaleas and gardenias follow pilgrims. Walking on trails, rippling songs of Carolina wrens invite you into mystery, cicadas deafen you with music, crickets are just about to take over the nights, kingly owls are spotted occasionally but always felt, and the snakes promise to come out any day now. April is magic. It is unbearable. It is the busiest month at the Center.

At the Gateway, on February 1st we wait with excitement for a rush of April reservations and they come, they fill us up. There is not one space left. When April comes, blazing sunshine blasts into our office as we welcome His lovers from all over for Baba to bestow on them the newness of spring. Families and children, spring breakers, old and new, parents, grandparents and all. For Easter sunrise, heavy eyes wake up to an invite from Baba’s house, children walk around the lake looking for bunnies and every once in a while unfound Easter eggs appear months later for another child who is not even looking. But this year, the Lord resurrects within us.

The Gates to the Center are closed, but it breathes in beauty, the creatures guard it, the flowers enchant it and Meher Baba adorns His home with His presence. Baba said, “My center is the heart of every lover. Every lover with a heart that loves Baba is a center.” For all of us who cannot go to His home, our hearts are inner tillable terrain for His ploughing, surrendering roughness and hopes of all returns. There, lilacs will breed out of dead land, our thorns will render roses to gently caress His feet, our complaints sowed will bloom into buds of spring. His mammoth ocean will soothe us, and the vastness of His will, will help us persevere. “The awful daring of a moment’s surrender,”* will painstakingly create a transformational landscape of His training ground. And finally, perhaps in that continuing longing, a sliver of His Center right within our hearts may be ready for an offering.

Baba once said, “Be patient. Wait in my love. Those who wait for me never wait in vain. Divine love and divine happiness await the one who is victorious and who holds out to the bitter end.” While we let Him speak to us, create and destroy, protect, nurture and take over our entire inner being, His physical Center rests in peace, every full tree, looking to the sun, prostrated and perfectly aligned to His will. Waiting for the Beloved’s next direction.

*From TS Eliot’s Poem, “The Waste Land”