Tuesday July 17th
Dickens writes about how every heart encompasses a secret, every heart is secret to the other, the dreams of one may be a secret of another, every house, every hearth, every grave holds a secret treasure store. In this regard every pauper is as rich as the prince.
We traveled by train Sunday and Monday. The stations teem with people sleeping on the cement, huddling in conversing groups, and rushing on. I’ve never seen them before and probably never will again. How many secrets passed me in the dark, stared right at me in the light, even looked with suspicion at me as the unknown, intruding “white” man?
What secrets are treasured in the Taj Mahal? The romance of their love? The daily retinue of their life? The loss and destiny of her 14 children? The decline and fall of the Mughol empire and culture, even as European settlements first came to American shores? What about the secrets of the thousands of servants mining, hauling, shaping, placing, carving every marble block?
What secrets are treasured in the Agra fort? What led them to built their forts with such great open spaces, so unlike European castles and forts? What secrets blazed in assaults on those walls, or died about those walls?
Among all those secret hearts, where was the secret of the ages? A secret not hidden but made manifest for God’s heart revealed the gift of His Son so that all might know His secret, His love, His life.
