A man acquired an old house. More than a century of construction, but well maintained.

However, as soon as he entered the building, he realized that many repairs were needed. One detail here, another there.

And, of course, it needed a new paint job. So, he decided to remove the old paint and started to scrape the walls, the old color, a dirty and faded blue.

To his surprise, as he was pulling out the blue color, another color appeared underneath, pink, older than the one before.

He scraped it all. There came a third layer of crème-colored paint. Then the white.

He discovered that every resident who had passed by, had painted the house of the color he liked, always covering the previous one.

Seeing that, he decided to find out which the original color of that old house was.

Obstinate, patiently, he was withdrawing layer by layer. Finally, when he finished his work, he had a great surprise.

More beautiful than any paint, there was a beautiful wood, the wonderful pine of riga, with ribbons forming brown arabesques against an ivory background.

He was delighted and profoundly happy – pure pine of riga, with no layer of ink. A treasure to be admired.

*   *   *

We are like the old house, with layers and layers of paints of many colors.

For each occasion, we present one of the colors: the blue for moments of joy, pink for those serene, harmonious ones, red for the turbulent hours…

The people, who deprive us of our daily lives, know us in one way  or another, depending on the hours they have with us.

Some will say that we are joyful, others that we are too serious, others, that we are agitated, tense.

Many are the colors fir the most diverse periods that, sometimes, we ourselves find it difficult to figure out what we really are.

Are we the yellow of the intellect, the green of noisy parties, the aged white of the days of weariness?

Who are we, anyway? What are we really like?

It is important that we become self-aware, that we know in depth our feelings, our aspirations, our thoughts.

Self knowledge. And, with a very important detail: to know that we are not a body that walks, talks, works, performs tasks, moves from one place to another.

We are an immortal Spirit. Yes, pure pine of riga. The immortal essence.

And this immortal Spirit is the one who feels, thinks, idealizes and leads the body with all its coarse or fine layers of different painting.

Defining ourselves as a whole human being is what competes for us. To allow to appear, with all its beauty, this pine of pure riga, with its wonderful arabesques.

To discover that we need to remove the rude layer of our indifference to let the ivory background of love present itself.

To overflow in action our will to learn, our intention to improve, to present what we have the best for this wonderful world in which moves the body we command.

Immortal essence, children of God, heirs of His light and His love.

Spiritist Moment Team, based on chapter 5, part 1, from the book
Um ceu numa flor silvestre, by Rubem Alves, publisher Verus.
June 25.2018.