There was silence in the room when he had finished speaking. The man who had for so long hated and resisted the Lord of love, who had first been crippled through his own resistance and then ruined through continued resistance, and the woman, who, like her husband, had refused to see herself as she really was, sat there in silence, debating whether they would accept the truth about themselves or reject it.

Then Superiority rose, and going to her husband, took his hand and said in a trembling voice: “This is the great opportunity of our lives. We have been fools. Shall we cease to be fools from this day onward? We have lost all but our own selves; how blessed to lose ourselves also that we may find the life we were meant to live! He says he will make us meek and lowly of heart like himself. I am sick to death of being superior—are you not sick of being proud?”

Then her husband rose to his feet too, and they went and knelt before the Shepherd and said: “Sir, we are nothing; we are miserable beggars, unworthy to ask your aid. But we are your slaves from henceforth and for ever.”

The Shepherd said with infinite loving-kindness and love: “My slaves, Meekness and Lowliness-of-heart, ‘learn of me … and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’”

Chapter 16 Mountain of Myrrh (Meekness) Heaven Is the Kingdom of Love

CHAPTER 16
Mountain of Myrrh
MEEKNESS: Heaven Is the Kingdom of Love

The Mountain of Myrrh was the place where the King grew the lovely trees of meekness, which yielded in great abundance a spice which was a special favorite of his. These trees grew on the next to the last of the nine peaks forming the Mountains of Spices, which together formed a lofty circle of High Places surrounding the Valley of Humiliation, although there were narrow gorges between them, leading out into countless other valleys. By the time the King and his companion reached this eighth mountain, therefore, they had almost completed the circle and only the Mountain of Aloes still lay between them and the Mountain of Pomegranates which had been their starting point.

The Mountain of Myrrh, however, differed quite startlingly from all the other mountains in the group, diverse as all of them had been. It was very similar in shape to the low black mountain in the foreground of the Mountain of Pomegranates. That is to say, it was an almost perfect pyramid, though it towered up far higher than the poor black mountain; indeed, it rose higher than any of the other eight mountains, saving only the Mountain of Pomegranates on which grew the trees of love.