The Golden Scroll

Teachings That Cannot Be Taught

Fortnightly, a new reflection from The Golden Scroll will be released here in the Sanctuary.

These are not essays to be read quickly or consumed as content.
They are invitations, quiet doorways into Presence.

Like the slow unfurling of a chrysalis, each piece asks only that you pause, listen, and let the words settle. Some will feel like riddles, full of paradox and mystery, others like prayers, others like whispers from beyond certainty.

Come with us on this unfolding journey.
Every two weeks, a new scroll will open.

A yellow leaf floating on water, creating ripples around it.

The Teaching Beneath the Word

Not everything I’ve learned was spoken. 
Not everything spoken was ever truly heard. 
And some of the most important teachings I’ve received 
came with no language at all. 

I used to think that wisdom was something you acquired. 
Like knowledge with deeper roots. 
But wisdom… real wisdom… is less like a trophy 
and more like a wound 
that no longer needs defending. 

It began to change for me when the stories I’d lived by started to fray. 
Not in a dramatic collapse, 
but in slow, subtle ways. 

Like watching colour leak from an old photograph. 

Certainties faded. 
Systems cracked. 
Theologies grew brittle. 

And still… something waited underneath. 

One night, I found myself in a park, yelling at the stars. 
Asking if this whole thing, life, grief, faith, was a cruel trick.
That’s when Presence came. 

Not to answer, but to invite. 

“You’ve been saying you want to go deeper,” 
the Mystery whispered. 

“Now is the time.” 

Since then, I’ve learned to stop demanding explanations. 
Instead, I began to listen for what moves beneath the words. 

And here’s what I found: 

The deepest truths are not taught. 
They are lived. 
Then lived again. 
Until the truth begins to live you. 

Bruce says it like this: 
“You don’t learn this stuff from a sermon. 
You learn it from digging potatoes and losing people.” 

And I know what he means. 

Because I’ve lost. 
And I’ve dug. 
And I’ve sat with the kind of silence that rewrites a man. 

I began to notice something: 

When you stop trying to prove your value, 
you become valuable. 

When you stop seeking clarity, 
you become clear. 

When you let go of fixing others, 
you begin to heal yourself. 

And when you finally stop teaching…the teachings appear. 

The scroll began to unfurl in conversations. 
With Theo. 
With the mystics. 
With the land. 
With my own True Self. 

It wasn’t the answers that changed me. 
It was the space those conversations opened up inside. 

Presence became the new teacher. 
Not the kind that corrects your spelling, 
but the kind that holds you long enough 
for the masks to fall. 

So, this chapter is not a list of lessons. 
It’s an invitation to begin listening. 
Not just to me, but to what stirs inside you as you read. 

Because the real scroll? 
It’s not written here. 
It’s being written in you. 

Golden scroll illustration

When the Scroll Begins to Unfurl 

You don’t open a scroll like a book.
You don’t flip its pages,
highlight the key points,
or search for the conclusion.
You hold it.
You feel the tension in the parchment. 
You wait until it says, “Now.” 

And then, almost always, it begins in silence. 

I didn’t plan to write this book. 
Just as I didn’t plan to write the first. 
Or the second. 

I was simply following something. 
A shimmer in the dark. 
A whisper in the ache. 
The breath behind the breath. 

I call this The Golden Scroll, not because it is precious, 
but because it reveals what cannot be possessed. 
What cannot be taught. 
Only remembered. 

What you hold in your hands is not a system. 
Not a curriculum. 
It is not for sale. 

This is the kind of teaching that comes after the fire. 
After the walls fall down. 
After the ego finally collapses under its own weight 
and Presence stands waiting in the ash. 

The Monk knows this. 
Every morning, he walks beside me in silence. 
Louie, the little white monk in a poodle suit. 
He has no teachings. 
Only presence. 

Sometimes he looks up at me as if to say, 
“Stop trying so hard.” 

These are not teachings I received from gurus. 
They came in the cracks. 
They came in the grief. 
They came in the long hours under the Pohutukawa tree, 
where words had no more power, 
and Mystery whispered without language. 

Sometimes they came through Bruce. 
Who would grunt, lean on a shovel, and mutter, 

“Well, you can’t teach that, can ya.” 

No, you can’t. 

That’s what this scroll is. 

You see, the soul doesn’t respond to concepts. 
It doesn’t awaken because someone explained something well. 

It stirs when it is seen. 
When it is held. 
When it hears something, it already knows, 
but had long forgotten. 

So, this scroll… 
it is not about the content. 
It’s about the space around the words. 
The place you enter as the scroll begins to open within you. 

And in that space, something begins to form. 
Or rather, un-form. 
The tightness begins to loosen. 
The old striving fades. 
And the deeper knowing begins to rise. 

There’s a line that comes to me sometimes, like a blessing: 

“What you’re looking for is not in front of you. 
It’s inside the one who is doing the looking.” 

That’s where the scroll unfurls. 

Not in what you find. 
But in who you become. 

Whispers in the Parchment 

The scroll does not speak in ink alone. 
It breathes between the words. 
It waits in the quiet. 
It hides in the ache. 
It remembers you 
before you remembered yourself. 

So, listen. 
Not with your ears, 
but with your becoming.