The Quiet Perishing Within

Neville's Inner Vision

To Isaiah, Neville would answer: the 'righteous' are not a corpse but a state of consciousness that has died to fear. 'Perisheth' is the passing of an old self-image, the death of a future-marked doom the ego clings to; Providence does not strike the body, but shifts awareness until what might come no longer governs you. 'Merciful men are taken away' indicates that mercy—gentleness, compassion, and forgiveness—withdraws from the storm of ego and becomes a quiet, inner terrain. When you no longer lay responsibility for tomorrow on your shoulders, the 'evil to come' loses its power, and you are carried by your own I AM into a present where grace operates. The verse asks you to notice that the outer scene mirrors your inner alignment: when you revise your self-conception to the truth of I AM, events begin to feel guided, protected, and gracious. The righteousness you once feared losing is simply a deeper alignment with life itself, free of anticipation or judgment, moving you from death of old forms to the living, merciful activity of God in you.