One afternoon walking by the seashore

Feast Day Saint Zeno the Righteous

“And what if one of the gods does wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too.” (Homer, The Odyssey)

“Our prayers are at war with our prayers, our plans with our plans.” (Seneca, Moral Letters, 45.6)

"The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Rom. 8:16)

“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” (Saint Francis of Assisi, 1181- 1226)

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on…” (John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn)

"Keep Ithaka always in your mind. / Arriving there is what you’re destined for.” (C.P. Cavafy, Ithaka)

“How deep is the weatherfront of time/ that advances, roaring and calm/ unendingly between was and will be? (Les Murray, The Welter)

I recognise the voice a little better now

MG Michael at Werri Beach (Image by Eleni Michael)

I recognise the voice a little better now. I wasn’t sure when I was younger. Zealotry can distort things a lot. But now I know. The voice, it’s mine. It always has been. When God speaks to us, when He stoops down to whisper into our hearts, we hear our own voice. It is fashioned and formed after our own image. It is not a celestial thunder that we hear or some distant rumble. Call it consciousness or revelation. It matters little. Some call it introspective access. A cynical person might call it “playback”. It is the same with evil when it comes to tempt us with its deceptions. It is not a demon tempting me. It is my own voice that I recognise speaking to me. Though many times I have tried to kill this one. It is still there and it will not die. It is that other side of our humanity which most of us try to keep at bay, “the heart of darkness”, as Joseph Conrad has well described it. I will take both of these competing voices deep into my last hour. Dearly hoping that at least, my soul and ear, were much more attentive to ‘the one’ over ‘the other’. “Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture”, says Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica: “[i]f our thoughts are peaceful, calm, meek, and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is turned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of thoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquility.”

This does not mean that these voices are not real

This does not mean that these voices are not real. They manifest into discernible acts [like the inspirations of a painter before they are drawn onto the canvas]. Some of these voices may express themselves as works of charity, others given over to self-gratification. The ‘word’ becomes flesh. “It is a common mistake, to think you’re going to go into some kind of spiritual practice and you’re going to be relieved of the human burdens, from human crosses like thought, jealousy, despair – in fact, if anything, these feelings are amplified” (Leonard Cohen). One way or another we are all ‘theologians.’ We do battle with the Creator [or the ‘Great Unknown’] hoping to express a word or two. Good and Evil do ‘speak’ to us. It comes down to a matter of interpretation, like the making sense of our archetypal dreams. What does really matter is discerning the authentic voice, the truth of who we are. This takes time and lots of hard work for it means illuminating the vision of what we have been called to become. For it is only then, if I might paraphrase the well-known researcher of comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell, that we come upon our “sacred spaces”. Now this can take time. A lot of time. It is worth the perseverance we are told by those who have undertaken this journey. For a great number of us, when we look back on our lives there will not necessarily be one “transformational moment”, but rather, as Gabor Mate has said, we will look back at “transformational moments”. Solitude and prayer and inviting old souls into our lives helps much in this quest for the discovery of self and things.

Such hours let them be imprinted into my mind

Such hours let them be imprinted into my mind, that they not be wasted or forgotten when they will need to be recalled. Like the great Sun which hangs from the heavens to shower it’s hot light into my skin, my feet sinking into the soft white sand of Werri Beach, the spray of water hitting my flesh to draw me back to the Sea of Marmara, the seashells which bring to mind old stories now said and done. They too [both the seashells and the stories] are looking for salvation. I carry a beautifully knurled ‘shepherd’s staff’ picked off from the flotsam. I imagine these knurls the woven knots of my prayer rope, the one brought back from Athos. One a gift from the “wild Poseidon” and the other from a dying monk. I stand to look at the blue horizon where the defiant waters rise up to pressure the clouds. At night-time the stars will blaze in the firmament as brightly as they do in Jerusalem. Oh! Lord, how can all of this breath-taking beauty come to an end? “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” (2 Pet. 3:13)

When the ineffable can only be sighed

When the ineffable can only be sighed or groaned and in frustration we make scratches on the earth’s surface and on the walls of caves, on the skins of animals and parchments, this, then, is ‘pure art’. The initial expression of what is in the heart then begins to ‘trouble’ the mind. In modern times, there are those that can still tap into this primordial purity. Duane Hanson, the Minnesotan artist and sculptor said it wonderfully: “[a]rt doesn’t have to be pretty. It has to be meaningful.” At the core of religious ritual from the high theatres of Byzantium and Rome to the nocturnal Indigenous corroborees and so much more, is Art of the ‘tremendous mystery’ [mysterium tremendum]. It could oftentimes mean distinguishing between the truth as it pertains to our own lives and the competing cacophonies: “[w]e have to endure the discordance between imagination and fact” spoke that most compassionate of souls Simone Weil, the French social philosopher and mystic. “It is better to say, I am suffering, than to say, This landscape is ugly.”

But this sort of insight does not come cheaply

But this sort of insight does not come cheaply. It cannot be taught at universities, or by the reading of many books, or writing fine poetry, or expounding on philosophy. The essayist philosopher of the French Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne passionately pointed out, knowledge alone does not make us happy or prevent us from suffering. If it did, then the intellectuals of the world would more easily cope with life’s many ills, but they do not. They too suffer. Some even more acutely than the rest of us. “Natural judgement” is to be preferred over erudition. The pragmatist dialectician indebted to Socrates, stresses we must engage in active and participatory learning. Philosophy should be more than just a theoretical science with principles and presuppositions. What is more vital in our lives, Montaigne further argues, are lessons in the category of wisdom [experience and good judgement to begin with]. Lessons from life which can in reality help someone live “happily and morally”. It’s where the soul meets the anvil or the more familiar where 'the rubber meets the road'.

Religion in its purest form is our ‘highest language’

Religion in its purest form is our ‘highest language’. For the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher religion answers our deepest needs. Though most sacred languages outside our own might seem unintelligible to us, we quickly recognise them as we might similarly recognise music. Religion has been humanity’s quest for ultimate meaning in its encounter with the “big questions” of existence. It is behind our profoundest truths, collective mythologies and the inspiration of our deepest hopes. When it is used to divide and to cause war, however, it is not religion. Alas, too many examples of this. It is then the ugliest side of politics and the worst manifestation of humankind. “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes” (Pope John Paul II). Am I religious? Yes, if it means awe at the contemplation of the Creator and understanding creeds not as blueprints to power but as pathways to self-discovery. And no, if it means my way is the only way. As a Christian [and the least of the brethren for it is one thing to confess and another to practise the Gospel daily], I am convicted by Dallas Willard’s prayerful reflection: “[t]rue Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.” Religion in its purest form is to discern God in the other and to believe in a divine providence.

There are many definitions to Love

There are many definitions to Love of which “we are only the pieces” (Rumi). It is the subject of books to fill the libraries of the world. It is the key to every celebrated adventure that we have documented in both our sacred and profane histories. It is the courage which inspires the true heroes. It is the death and resurrection of the Godman Himself. It is the possibility that though we may never have met, one day I could lay down my life for you. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. 22:39). In Buddhism one of the proofs or elements of love is the capacity to offer joy and happiness to another which is the essence of loving-kindness. These ideals are to be found in most of the world’s religious and cultural traditions. In Islam love cannot be comprehended outside the concept of compassion a recurring motif in the Quran. Indigenous cultures emphasize the ideas of sharing and caring for each other [but also for the land and the animal kingdom]. This is not 'cheap' ecumenism that would be far too easy and condescending. We will one day all be brought to task for love is from the beginning a call to salvation and union. Zora Neal Hurston, the African American anthropologist and ethnographer, author, filmmaker and more, in the middle of all this demanding work and the compressing struggles of her own tumultuous life, defined as memorably as any before or after her: “[l]ove makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” This also means to be able to forgive and to ask to be forgiven. There will be demands made of us. We learn soon enough there is no other way.

And a beautiful poem is now a jumbled line of words

It is only natural for our perception of the world to be blunted during times of a personal crisis which could be the result of a number of tribulations. And things which would normally fill our hearts with inspiration and hope to give us pleasure are now much less vibrant and appear to us to be much out of focus. A heavenly sunrise no longer excites our senses, and a beautiful poem is now a jumbled line of words. There is little meaning and no purpose when things appear to be imploding around us. Sometimes what we feel is Samuel Beckett’s ‘unnameable’: “…a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks, and that I listen, and that I seek, like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts...”. Yet, we must not stay here, not in this place of the ‘caged beasts’. It is good to remember that the Sun will rise the next day and that this too, it will pass. I must wait and not rush to any unalterable decisions. Simone Weil, the ‘patron saint of outsiders’, who endured great personal suffering in her lifetime, wrote reflecting on her own experiences: “[w]e must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.” A hard truth which was neither said nor written lightly.

I need to listen best I can

Listening is not only a gift, but also something which is learnt, an art to be cultivated. There are many advantages to being a good listener. The wise old Isocrates, one of the ten Attic orators from Ancient Greece, admonishes in his oration To Demonicus (1:18): “[s]pend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.” At the same time listening makes us more benevolent and empathetic to those around us. Ralph G. Nichols, the American scholar considered the modern pioneer in the study and development of the field of listening,  has left us with many marvellous sayings and the following is one of the most discerning: “[t]he most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” I need to listen best I can.

There are some difficult things which we have to live with

“Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.” (Eccl. 3:16-17)

There are some difficult things which we have to live with, where justice will not be afforded to us and it would appear that injustice has triumphed. The odds can be stacked so high up against us and the powerful networks which we face so impossible to defeat that we have to live with the searing pain of knowing that truth is not always rewarded in this life. ‘Cancelling’ a human being like executing them, can take on many forms. Dostoyevsky and Kafka had much earlier interrogated the dehumanising and devastating power of bureaucracies with their unforgettable stories which continue to strongly resonate and prove true even today. And so we have a choice between the two paths: join these devious communities so propagating their wickedness or come to terms with the hard fact that this story is now done. Life is not a movie. Good people have been, and will continue to be destroyed, in many different ways. Real life scenarios do not always end in the manner of the film Rocky (1976) with the underdog defeating the world champion and the world looking on in an impossible finish.  Oh! But there is, my dear brother and my dear sister, there is another path to non-surrender…  to endure, ‘to remain firm’ and ‘to withstand’, this has always been the greatest victory. Allow for your light to shine bright as it can. We make the difference where we can through our own example whether small or great. Surviving the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust the invincible Eddie Jaku would later title his life-changing memoir, “The Happiest Man on Earth”, (2020). Remember, too, that even justice herself, as that irascible monk Martin Luther said long ago, is only ever temporal, “but the conscience is eternal and will never die.”

I stoop down to write my name

I stoop down to write my name on the sand near the water’s edge: j e r e m i a h. Within a few  seconds it is wiped away like the footprints we leave behind. It is difficult to hold back the tears when you remember the very young and tragic Keats: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

My Creator and Father in Heaven, forgive me for ever daring to write such things which I know only very little of, don’t turn Your benevolent countenance away from me, forgive me the great multitude of my transgressions… and this only on account of my small endurance.

Roselands, Monday Morning

Roselands Shopping Centre, Sydney (est., 1965); Monday morning 10.00 AM; a small crowd most will go to Miranda nowadays; people wearing face masks rushing about here and there; how to know who is fine and who is not; “Where are you marching?” (Quo vadis); the rich get richer, the poor grow poorer; profits versus prophets; “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you” (Jm. 5:1); I like the quieter places; this was one of my old haunts; I wore a mullet short at the front and sides long at the back; on the wall near the escalators large black and white photographs commemorating the past; a handsome young Roger Moore in one looking into space; a grandmother in curlers sitting at the fountain with her grandchild expressionless in another; Jimmy’s Kitchen; appetizers; fired rice or noodles; Paul Bocuse; Alain Ducasse; Anne-Sophie Pic; I look around past my right shoulder; a cluster of friends sipping their short blacks; they are old Greek men characters from a past story; one of them is against all vaccines, so he says; I understand what they are saying; they are ‘killing time’; I remember Sophia P. from Russia; we studied theology in Thessaloniki; she told me that time “was all we ever had”; R. C. Sproul (1939-2017); “The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in”; the triumph of grace; it is not good to regret; except for some few times; why did I have to cross the Cretan’s path; almost lost my mind not to mention my hope; had to rediscover the remnants of my faith from the crevices between the floorboards; “In the multitude of the anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul” (Ps. 94:19); the old self still wars strongly within me; “Here is the work, there the reward; here the struggle, there the crowns”; St. Barsanuphius the Great (6th century); Rainbow Lorikeet; Gouldian Finch; Rainbow Bee-Eater; the infection in the jaw has returned; another cracked tooth courtesy of Mae Sot; drilling into the calcium phosphate; pain is a reminder of mortality; who is Tom O’Bedlam; read me another poem, my dear man; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YMJcIvpUlc; the cemetery is the greatest university; from Latin universitas ‘the whole’; Sapanta cemetery, Romania; Cimitero Monumentale di Milano; Père-Lachaise, Paris; the aseity of the Deity; “in our image, in our likeness” (Gen. 1:26); back down to earth; Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck); George Milton and Lennie Small; scrambled eggs on sourdough toast with fried tomatoes; a regular Latte with skim milk, please; a glass of water to wash the tablets down; that’s the reality; all is good; by the grace of God; my waitress friend asks me questions; “when are they going to microchip us”, she asks; “when we are ready”, I say and secretly weep into the web of my right hand; “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place” (Rev.1:1); apocalypse “an uncovering”; Patmos in the Aegean Sea; hold these little flowers; don’t break their stem; water them through to the end; Daffodils; Gardenias; Marigolds; I now look back around my left shoulder; a young couple [heavily tattooed] hold hands to complete the picture; next to them a family of five waiting for their order; I remember our Reno Café; the exotic syrups for the milkshakes; passion fruit; tropical banana; cool lime; an early memory from the ‘shoppe’; Mother by the Philips radio calling out to Father; “George, they’ve killed the other one!”; Father in response, “Who, Helen?”; it was Robert Kennedy; it seems like yesterday; I close my eyes and I am back sitting at my favourite table with my homework; in our Reno Café where I first scrapped my knees and heard the stories; Mr. Bill with his gold rimmed glasses; ‘Sir’ Ronnie in his dark suit and fedora hat; and Big Jack with his Kent Brewery (KB) long necks; cigarette smoke and tall stories interleave just beneath the ceiling; across the road from the ‘shoppe’ my first school; Newtown Primary School (construction years 1875-1921); my earliest football coaches Mr. Riley and Mr. Higgins; Morse code; the duration of a dash three times the duration of a dot; unearth the words from coals and diamonds; Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943); Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983); “Life is a marvellous, transitory adventure”; Lavrentis Mahairitsas (1956-2019); San Ton Palio Stratioti; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm8iCTFyTGQ; an itch on the tip of the nose; another beneath the left eyebrow; like yours right now; we are more alike than you think; same fears and dreads; a ‘one-way ticket’ in the back pocket; “And this is where the story lifts into the air”; The White Road (2015); Edmund de Waal; comedy is vital; satire even more; they have brought down tyrants; tensions in Tigray rise; Mexico surpasses 100, 000 Covid deaths; Black Lives Matter protests emerge in Brazil; another coffee before I leave; this time a plain white no sugar; George Carlin (1937-2008); Pierre Desproges (1939-1988); Richard Pryor (1940-2005); Monday morning 11. 52 AM; three new books from the bookstore on the ground floor [opposite Mr. Mint]; Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart); The Death of Vivek Oji: A Novel (Akwaeke Emezi); The Happiest Man on Earth (Eddie Jaku); Bakers Delight; Roseland’s Florist; Go Vita; Katina concluding with ISTAS 20; Global Technology and Development; Public Interest Technology (PIT); Jacques Ellul (1912- 1994); Oh! If only you were here today you wise soul; “Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization”; I too must leave soon; take Mother to the ophthalmologist; she is preparing her eyes for the long journey ahead; “From Here to Eternity” (1953); Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr; directed by Fred Zinnemann; Thespis; Theatre of Dionysius; T. S. Eliot poetic drama; life on the wings of bees; change the nectar into honey; for the love and for the wounds; l must remember to reply to Howard; to our amazing Miss Pat; to Cathy A. on the progress of the journal; friendship a precious balm to the soul; “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born” (Anais Nin); Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson); Robert Schumann (1810-1856); Piano Concerto in A Minor Op. 54; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynky7qoPnUU&feature=emb_logo; Protests in Bangkok against the long-standing monarchy in Thailand; AstraZeneca announces Oxford vaccine; crisis in Ethiopia and demonstrations in Uganda continue; “Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering” (Fyodor Dostoevsky); moral sense of right or wrong; El Greco (1541-1614); Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957); Nikos Xilouris (1936-1980); I hope George hasn’t forgotten his licence back home in Gerringong; our drives down together are precious to me [I wish for him too]; a group of people in wheelchairs with their carers; pray I could speak to them to ask for ‘the keys’; they know; I wonder who is out there right now reading my pulse; the statue of David; Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I; the Sistine chapel; "We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world”; Uncle Vanya (1898); Anton Chekhov (1860-1904); benevolence; resolution; departure aka ‘take off’; do svidaniya.

On the quest for a deeper understanding

“Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.” (Prov. 2:3)

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26)

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.” (Seneca)

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.” (Marcus Aurelius)

“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” (Carl Jung)

“The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into.” (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” (Zora Neale Hurston)

“Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first.” (Shannon L. Alder)

It is good to make the clear distinction

Source: http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlnasa/reference/imaginedvd/Files/apod/apod/ap050425.html

When reading ‘spirituality’ literature as it is normally earmarked in libraries and bookstores, it is good to make the clear distinction between the ‘amateur’ and the ‘professional’ author. Especially nowadays when there is a heightened level of suffering and seeking in the world. The amateur will open their heart, furrowed but still beating, to speak something on life’s joyful-sorrows. The professional, on the other hand, has ‘secrets’ and polished merchandise to sell. The first approach takes the reader through the ‘stations of the cross’ as it stumbles and stutters before the great questions which life puts to us. The second approach with its tailor-made answers is as undemanding to write as it can be destructive for the susceptible consumer whose head is filled with unreasonable expectations. Our hearts are not cut stone to be categorised on some ‘zeitgeist’ chart. They are [to paraphrase Algernon Swinburne when he refers to Walt Whitman’s lips], ‘blood-beats of song’. This is why we are especially moved and aided by the experiential spiritual literature which comes out of concentration camps, and prisons, and hospitals. And exile from country.

One of the most powerful deceptions

One of the most powerful deceptions of our increasingly automated world, where people similarly to perishable goods are ‘tagged’ with an expiry date, is the dreadful lie of the easy path to peace and enlightenment. These two ways are invariably sold and marketed together. The truth is much more sobering and gut-wrenching than the professionally generated manual which goes something like: “12 easy steps to realizing the god within and how to make your first Million Dollars at the same time!” Growth can only ever come by way of struggle and tension. It is a gradual formation and development. It can be like an enclosed chrysalis breaking through its hard-outer case. Some contemplatives following in the tradition of the unjustly persecuted 16th century priest Lorenzo Scupoli, have called it “spiritual combat”.[1] Most of us know with even a modicum of life experience behind us, there are no short-cuts to realising peace within our hearts. That is a calmness or a ‘stillness’ which leads to self-awareness: the examination of our thoughts, emotions, and actions.  The soul, that immaterial part of ourselves, needs to declutter and to remove unnecessary things. Increasingly difficult with our almost total immersion into a ‘hot-wired’ world of algorithms and computer-implementable instructions. And yet, we despair not, for all things are possible. The soul is not limited by boundaries nor can it be imprisoned by time: 

“The psyche, in turn, is the openness of human being for the world as a whole in its three-dimensional temporality of past, present and future which the nous within the psyche not only understands in some way, but also with which it resonates in moods of all kinds. It is only because we share this mooded resonance with three-dimensional time that we humans can share music.” (Michael Eldred)

The highest accomplishment to all our realisations

The spiritual quest can at times be ugly and brutal and indeed, on occasion even shocking. Like Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Lk. 22:44). The search for meaning will make serious demands of us, require lots of courage, and ask the hard questions. We will have to face up to our greatest fears. This is the path of understanding our greater purpose in life. Otherwise we will aimlessly drift without focus and be lacking in both compass and discernment. All effort will then become wasted. It would be terrible to die like Márquez’s protagonist character, Santiago Nasar (Chronicle of a Death Foretold), who “died without understanding his death.” To have meaning in our lives, as close as we can reach it [for there will always be questions and doubts], is the highest accomplishment to all our realisations: “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'” (Viktor Frankl). All these realisations give us a better understanding of who we are and what we have been called to become. They contain the fundamentals of ‘who’ I am and the impact of my presence in the world.

What is truly important to us

What is truly important to us? What sacrifices are we willing to make to discover our true identity? Are we connecting with other souls? To what degree can we say that we are living meaningful and productive lives? Are we prepared at any moment to confront death, for in truth, this will reveal how far we have progressed into our journey. This life time pilgrimage of ours which begun with our birth. “Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are” (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying). It is not an easy interrogation of the self [“our essential being”]. How detached are we from the ‘tinsel and glitter’ entrapments of the world? We know how easily it is to be influenced, for as Christina Kline has written: “The things that matter stay with you, seep into your skin.” Are we open to revealing our own vulnerability if this means to become a more compassionate human being? These are tough questions. We tend to push and shove them out of the way for when we are ‘ready’. But when exactly is that right time? Our hearts can become so hardened, like the “hardened” heart of Pharaoh (Ex. 7:3), that none of this might matter anymore. We don’t have to be living in a cave or in the desert to contemplate such wonderful things. There is a saying that speaks to this matter and is often heard from the monks of Mount Athos when advising pilgrims: “It is not the place but the Way.” For many this quest, ‘the way’, is to know and to be known by the Creator. For others it is to find their place in the universe. These paths have something manifestly in common: the aching yearning to reach our capacity and the practising of certain disciplines to make sure we have given ourselves every chance in this quest.

For some of us this struggle to realize our potential

For some of us this struggle to realize our potential and come to terms with our “faith seeking understanding” could take years. This should not discourage us. So long as we are building. Anselm knew very well what he was talking about with this fides quarens intellectum. No one can step into the ring to fight this most important of battles for us. We are alone to work our way through ‘the darkness’ when we are called to go through it. The most beautiful of earthly beings, Saint John of the Cross, has called this “the obscure night”. We keep steadfast despite the wounds and fears, till we come across those shards of light which others before us have attested. They have remained resolute that they might also testify. We educated ourselves through our tribulations that meaningfulness, which is our sense of purpose, is something which requires both endurance and contemplation. None of this is imaginary. It is as real as a deep cut to the flesh or the sharp sting of a red pepper on the tongue. “If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit” (Thomas Merton). In other words, it is the quest to find our best ‘pair of shoes’:

“Sometimes a man can become possessed by a vision. Perhaps it makes no sense to anyone else; perhaps it is a revelation to everyone. Yes, this man will say to himself, this is the way the world is supposed to be. This is how I am supposed to fit into it. He will know, like a man trying on shoes, that he has finally found a pair that will serve him for a very long walk indeed. So he begins, one step at a time.” (Joshua Cooper Ramo)

There are no hidden secrets to peace and enlightenment

There are no hidden secrets to peace and enlightenment. The imaginary storyteller Lionel Suggs has put it very well: “The secrets of the universe aren't really secrets. It's just that humanity is too subjugated by their blissful ignorance to ask the right questions.” If there are any secrets at all, they are evident ones that most of us discern and attempt to put into practice knowing in our hearts that grace is stumbling upon us, rather than the other way around. Gratia urget nos: “grace presses on us”. To be sure, not everyone feels this way, but can we say with an equal amount of certainty, that not everybody even if it’s only been once, has not been confronted with existential dread? This “perpetual oblivion”, as Saint Sophrony Sakharov writes, “as the extinguishing of the light of consciousness”. There is a mystic in each one of us. Who is there who does not believe there are truths to be found which go beyond the intellect? We have all prayed in one form or another, or have been dazzled by the stars, or have wept to music, or have had our spirits compressed by the “prime mover”. The search for peace itself is mystical at its core for we are tapping into a higher state of consciousness, that is, the transcendence of our everyday urges and compulsions.[2] The problem is though these ‘secrets’ are plain enough to see it is difficult to put them into practice, that is, to put them into practice consistently. And that’s okay too. We are, after all, those life-long ‘tapestries’ in the making:

“Our stories make us who we are. And each story has its own purpose and its own reward. Each story rings true and each story is worthy of the ages. There is no such thing as an insignificant life.” (Laurence Overmire)

The connection to the two great virtues

These universal truths, sagacious and sensible lessons, for the greater part established on the practise of detachment and acts of compassion have been freely given to us and put down in writing by the wisdom teachers of our collective spiritual traditions.[3] We will not find these truths, which the habitually misread Nietzsche might call “transformative lessons”, in the post sent to us by some ‘faux guru’. Asking the right questions ‘who am I’ and ‘what am I doing here’ is what remains vital [even if this might simply mean to make more correct decisions than wrong ones], and these questions ordinarily have to do with what can I ‘contribute’ rather than with what can I ‘take away’. Again we discern here the connection to the two great virtues: love and compassion. We might think of this as an ‘affectionate co-suffering’ for salvation, however we might understand it, is never a thing on its own. It is from here which good things will flow for both individual and community.[4] In the Gospel, the Christ himself, understands his mission fundamentally as one of service: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45).

This interplay between the self and the outside

Of course, there is and will be, that ‘right’ moment when it seems the marvellous resolution has at last arrived, but pride would make us blind to the fact that there are strong forces, even on the outside of ourselves, which can influence our decision making. And these can often determine the journey ahead unless we endeavour to take some control like the weathered and experienced sea captain in a storm. This interplay between the self and the outside is like the flesh and sinews which wrap around the bones of the living. Or the thorns which run up and down the stem of a Black Baccara rose. In Buddhist thought it is this clinging onto negative experiences and the desire for temporal things which produces dukkha, suffering or the “unsatisfactoriness” in life.  It is similar to “sin” which in the Greek is hamartia, this literally means: “to miss the mark”. So we do our best to not fold, but to ride the storm out. Humility, remaining modest, will prove to be one of our most loyal friends. This will sometimes mean to surrender, not to give up. Of course not, but to let go of the useless weight that we might be better able to shift our gaze. The numinous Japanese author Haruki Murakami has expressively described these ‘stormy’ trials which come to contest against our spirit and what we might expect:

“Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

[1] https://www.amazon.com.au/Spiritual-Combat-Dom-Lorenzo-Scupoli/dp/1783792744

[2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/what-does-it-feel-like-to-be-enlightened/

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-World-Religions-Templeton-2002-03-01/dp/B01FKTL3X8

[4] In the context of Christian theology the end goal of the spiritual life is to “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), which is to participate in God’s divine energy, the overflow of his glory. If this is of interest please see: Panayiotis Nellas, “Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person”, (New York: SVS Press, 1987).

Life can be a bit like the 'underside' of a tapestry at times

“Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.” (Acts 9:18)

“Acquire the Spirit of peace. And thousands around you will be saved.” (Saint Seraphim of Sarov)

“Everything I love is born unceasingly/ Everything I love is always at the beginning.” (Odysseas Elytis)

“The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.” (Chinua Achebe)

“To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.” (Dorothy West)

“His gaze and yearning are way outside the loop. His pilgrimage has lots of holes in it. See him wandering alone Beaming to himself.” (Michael Leunig)

“In the dark one can sometimes see/ so much more clearly than in the day.” (David Brooks)

Hold fast onto your dreams

September 17, 2011

Christina Hotel, Bucharest, Romania

You tell me you want to see your name in one of my stories. I really don’t know why. Perhaps it is more of encouragement, that you like the few things I have read to you. I am not who you think I am. I am an ordinary man. I do write, yes, but more than likely what I scribble down will be lost or deleted, or at best dismissed of little or no value. So, okay, my dearest Alina, consider yourself amongst my lost and found. Hold fast onto your dreams and never betray the fairy tale in your heart which makes you hop, skip, and jump when you serve my breakfast in the morning. And remember, if you should ever happen to fall into quicksand the mistake is to panic and to fight it. The secret, they say, is to relax best you can and slowly waddle yourself out. Other times, you will know when, think of the jet pilots who must go full throttle when landing on the flight deck lest they miss the bands and drop into the water.

Then there are those heartrending times

Like magnets which point in opposite directions to push apart and repel for the field lines cannot join up, there are souls, too, which are incompatible. There are times when we seem to know it as if by intuition, like a parent might instinctively know when something is bothering their child. In other instances it could take longer. We might hurt a little for we have given something of our heart to the other, yet after some time has passed, we move on. We learn from the experience and take down ‘notes’. Then there are those other desolating times, when we have given, it would seem, all of our heart and spirit to the other [and sometimes this might be to an institution we have dedicated our lives to] and we find much to our shock and disbelief that when it really mattered, we were incompatible. There was no harmony. The one was not consistent with the other. This is when it gets very hard and moving on will not happen quickly as we might wish. Invariably, “the deepest wounds”, as the Greek philosopher and Eastern Orthodox theologian Christos Yannaras has said, are those of an “unfulfilled relationship”. But it also from here, from this high place which marks the wound, that we have the better view of the landscape which is still ahead.

Our own communities might reject us too

Organizations to a large extent help shape identity which makes individuals definable and recognizable. How much more faith-based institutions or similarly based workplaces with their overwhelming references to community and fidelity. We might be belittled and made to feel unwelcome, and whatever gifts we might possess, they are neither recognised nor acknowledged. We could consider that “it has all been such a dreadful waste”. Already in the grip of that horrible feeling of having the life sucked out of you, now left with nothing: an empty shell, you think. There is a marvellous title to one of Philip Roth’s books that describes this perfectly. The Humbling. Consider the first line: “He had lost his magic.” What to do when you have been made to feel you have lost your magic? Do not stop believing in your talents and capabilities. Ever. To do otherwise would be your adversary’s greatest victory, and your life’s most serious loss. You might often feel defeated, maybe even vanquished, but your mere presence is the sign that your “seed” is not yet done. There are the many lessons of this resilience in nature herself. Think of the lotus seed that slept in a dry lake bed in north eastern China for more than 1,000 years to sprout in our lifetime like its modern sibling. It resisted the drought. It waited. It is the plant which has come to symbolize rebirth.

The first thing is to accept this ‘time frame’

The first thing is to accept this ‘time frame’, that is, to understand that no amount of anguish or anger will make the hurting “go away” any quicker. It helps immeasurably for someone we trust, who has travelled in among those fields, to tell us to endure and that the suffering and pain we are feeling at the moment will decrease in intensity, that is the one certainty. You learn to carry it. To then become a wound which has healed and which only we ourselves can re-open. The potential for hurt will remain. Some fortunate few will be able to discard it once its purpose has been served. Like the larvae which shed their old skins. But if you accept this wound as a ‘pearl of wisdom’ for your soul, on that day when you are able to receive it as such, you need not see it as a wound but as a piece of history marked on your body, a period in your ‘book of life’. We write the story as we go. We might not be able to go back and delete the pages, but we can to a large extent determine how the next chapter is to be written and what goes into it. The German-born Swiss author and painter Hermann Hesse whose writings reveal a detailed search for identity and self-knowledge, has perfectly said [summarising the ancient philosophical lesson]: "Each man's life represents a road toward himself." So we not only discover ourselves by going on this great adventure, but we are at the same time participating in creation.

Some people are frightened by this actual possibility

Some people are frightened by this actual possibility. It is either too difficult to imagine or too great of a responsibility to accept. Sartre was wrong in this, that “hell is other people”. We need not be forever trapped in other people’s perceptions and judgements of who we are. Rather our neighbour might very well prove to be our salvation. The comprehension that our freedom can determine who we are or can be, should not be a source of anguish.  Rather it should be an acknowledgement to the reality of our potential [from the Latin potentia ‘power, might, or force’]. To be sure, we do not control the future, but we can go a long way to determine what we put into it. More often than not, it is this alone which makes the difference. And to a large degree determines the results of our providence. We find this disclosure in the earliest of our literatures, including in Homer’s two epic poems the Odyssey and the Iliad. Later generations find this same truth reiterated in Constantine Cavafy’s unforgettable Ithaka. It is the most famous of his designated “Homeric poems”:

“Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey/ Without her you would not have set out/ She has nothing left to give you now/ And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you/ Wise as you will have become, so full of experience/ you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

Life can be a bit like the ‘underside’ of a tapestry at times

https://www.heirloomtapestries.com/tree-of-life-tapestry-light.html

‘A tapestry is made by repeatedly weaving the horizontal (weft) threads over and under the vertical (warp) threads, then squishing (or tamping) those horizontal threads down so they are very close together, thus completely hiding the vertical threads from view.’

Tapestry is originally from Old French tapisserie, it means “to cover with heavy fabric, to carpet”. In the medieval period they were valued even more than painting, the more intricate were highly prized and sought after. Two of the most beautiful and incredibly intricate as examples of this now much underestimated art form are the 100m “Apocalypse Tapestry” (1377) and the mysterious suite of seven tapestries with the ‘AE’ monogram which comprise “Unicorn Tapestries” (1500). Even a tapestry of average quality can amaze us when we contemplate not only the intricately created image before us, but also astound us at both the patience and endurance of the creator. But pause for a moment and consider the back of this creation, that is, the “underside”. What might you find? It can appear to be a mass of contradictory and haphazard movements of thread. Overlapping and going in all manner of direction, it has very little of the cohesion and beauty of what you see on the ‘other side’. But that’s exactly what was required to create this astonishing impression in the first place. Life can be a bit like a tapestry at times. It might not always look good or appear to be going in the right directions, but it’s a splendid design in the making. For the community of believers the image of the Creator as the Potter comes to mind: “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (Is. 64:8)

If we don’t let go of those darker dispositions

If we don’t let go of those darker dispositions, we can ourselves become that which has hurt us. That is, we can begin to associate too closely with our pain. Even to risk returning the same negativity that we receive, and so mirroring that very soul we were incompatible with in the first place. This is a form of transference. It remains one of the deepest flaws in the presentation of atheistic existentialism, to not see the other as a possibility for your restoration. Compare this against the teaching of Jesus Christ: “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk. 12:31). This concept of ‘self-love’, which is also vital in Buddhism, is “not be confused with narcissism or selfishness”, but as it has been expressed in the Udana of the Pali canon as an act of self-compassion which results in not hurting others; or as it has been elsewhere said, we are not punished for our anger, but by our anger. ‘Letting go’ makes us lighter. It makes it much easier for us to move, to not remain anchored in the wrong spaces. And to get on, with what Heidegger might say, our “unfinished business”.

We are always chasing that ‘elusive’ something

We are always chasing that ‘elusive’ something. And our obsessions or unreal expectations can lead us onto paths of self-destruction. This was one of the fundamental lessons behind what has been called “the great American novel”, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Whether Captain Ahab was chasing after ‘god’ or he was simply ‘possessed’ by his own nightmares is not necessarily the point. The overriding message is that a ‘life purpose’ based on revenge or driven by pure animalistic instinct can only lead to destruction, not only for ourselves, but also for those who are “on board” with us. The history of nations, let alone those of individual examples, are replete with such ruinous conclusions.

“...all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” (Herman Melville)

Sometimes we can never wholly forget

Sometimes we can never wholly forget. This is only normal. We can grow to accept our history and be at peace with its providence. This comes with the knowledge our memories are here to stay. They will not be wiped away. We use them best we can, to become stronger and wiser in this test [Old French teste “an earthen vessel, especially a pot in which metals were tried”], as we plough on through, and deeper into the fields of life. I will sometimes catch myself thinking back to my ancestral home and to the days before my father died, when I was absent in New Zealand to miss him by a few hours. It is like Joyce who was desperate to leave Dublin but never could, Faulkner who mistakenly thought he could escape Lafayette County, or Sylvia Plath who would never break free from Winthrop. But we do not stay there, in those old neighbourhoods, for too long. We cannot, for invariably that would be to our own peril. There is also a lesson to be learnt from the Old Testament story of the wife of Lot who looked back to turn into a “pillar of salt” (Gen. 19:26). To be sure, we keep what is good from our old places, to then move on the best we can. For each one of us there is a time and place of restoration, this is where we come closer to our truest identity.  Sometimes it is in times and ways where we might least expect. The marks of pain like the signs of ageing on our body are what make us human. "Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (Ps. 90:10). The novelist Marie Bostwick has put it very well: “I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. None of us does. That’s why we get up and go on because, until forever comes, you can’t stay where you are.”

Degrees of distance diminishing and dissolving

In brass instruments the act of blowing by the instrument player makes the air in the tube vibrate and produce a sound. As the notes get higher and higher, they get closer and closer, for the air in the tube vibrates in smaller and smaller ‘packets’. Brother Raphael, who used to be  a lead trumpet player with a philharmonic “somewhere” [on account of their humility they never do tell you where], would explain such things to me as we would make the long trek down the mountain to the orchards. What he said in this instance made me think of the affection we share and experience in the company of our loved ones. The more time we spend with each other the closer we grow one into the other. Degrees of distance diminishing and dissolving. Individuality is not lost for each member is still master and remains in control of his or her own pitch and timbre. This proximity is what creates context and permits us to explore the dynamics of relationships. The French chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul has demonstrated to us that the manner in which a colour is perceived is influenced by the other colours surrounding it. In the context of the Holy Trinity, theologians speak in terms of ‘perichoresis’ [or a “rotation”] as to the relationship and movement of the love of the three persons in the triune God:

"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."  (2 Cor. 13:14)

The Werri Beach Prayer

Gerringong, NSW, September 14th, 2019

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1)

Old Man in Prayer from Rembrandt

To what purpose this pain which rents the spirit

In those secret places which makes the bones throb

For what intent my Lord this dreadful brokenness

This deepest despair like the nightingale’s last song 

Like the final gasp of air from the second crucified thief

What caused You to turn Your face from your beseeching servant

From Your high place you see him fall onto his knees in the midday Sun

To cry unto the heavens ‘be merciful to me, Oh! Lord be merciful to me’

Even my tears you have taken away, I have none left, my eyes burn

They are scored by the sand which by Your command rises up to scrape my face

My soul laments this terrible desolation visited upon it for it has known

The divine sweetness of Your presence and the ineffable peace of Your holy places

‘My God, My God’

How will I survive this night when Your absence will break my heart

And deeper still in those unspoken places where the only infallible words

Ever spoken by the mortal mouth keep forever in the blood and marrow:

‘be merciful to me, Oh! Lord be merciful to me’.