Exile Song, Inner Zion

Neville's Inner Vision

By the rivers of Babylon, the captives are made to measure their pain by the memory of Zion; their harps hang unused, and the demand to entertain strangers forces a split between feeling and faith. In Neville's lens, this scene isn't a historical moment but a state of consciousness in you. The exile is the mind's occupation with loss, the strange land a belief that your principle self is separated from God, from the Jerusalem of your own heart. The cry How shall we sing? is the question you must answer with a new assumption: the end is already begun in your I AM. Put away the old imagery of lack and pretend nothing is missing; replace the command to forget with the vow to remember your inner Zion. When you cultivate the sense of being already in possession of peace and loyalty to truth, the river's current becomes the stream of your present feeling. Your right hand and your tongue are tools of consciousness; use them to declare, I AM Jerusalem in my heart, now and always, and feel the return.