Vale la pena

 

I feel compelled by a muse, or perhaps my daemon, to compose what follows. I’m not sure if it is wise to share this or not. I’m uncertain of a great many things in life, but others as you will come to see, I am absolutely certain of. I suppose it does not hurt to bare one’s soul among friends.

 

My wife and I celebrated her birthday yesterday, and it brought to my mind’s awareness the greatest and most glorious day of my life. It was not the day I graduated high school, bootcamp, or college. It was not the day I got back from Iraq, nor the day I got out of the Marine Corps (though I had thought that for a long time). It was not even the first day I met the woman I was to spend the rest of my life with, nor even the day I proposed to her or the day we got married. Of course, all of these momentous occasions are landmarks and milestones in my life that have forever changed its course to my betterment. But that is just it, they still belong to ordinary sequential time (chronos) and not to the Kairos of the aeon above that is of a wholly different order. I still remember the occasion vividly, though the secondary details are fuzzy as ever and I am sure that I misremember those; I’ve also had the benefit of being able to constantly reinterpret the “event” as I have grown spiritually and learned more so that I understand it and myself in much greater depth than at the time.

 

               It was a beautiful spring afternoon a few years ago and my wife and I had just finished eating at an amazing steakhouse. It is one of those that is only open for 3 or 4 hours a day for 2 or 3 days a week, is a 2 hour drive from the city, in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t have a written menu as there are only 3 choices. As I said, after work one Friday afternoon we decided spur of the moment to head down there and the food was delicious indeed; we had a great time.

 

We were new to Oklahoma and (for my wife especially) this state had such gorgeously green vegetation and big open skies with radiant sunsets. She loves to take pictures, her phone has about 2.8 million or so photos in it. She kept wanting to take pictures of many things we saw, but I was tired from a long week of work and especially a long day and after having stuffed and quaffed myself into a food coma I was not in the mood. I just wanted to rush home; every time she asked if she could stop I would bark at her “No! Let’s just fuckin get home already. I’m tired.” I have no idea why I act this way, but I know it’s partly due to my extremely lopsided focus on being analytical (left-brain). I do think that it is good to make efficient use of time, to be on time to everything, and to be dependable. I love organizing things and making my routine as efficient and practical as possible. These are key skills in an analytical chemist and for anyone who wants to act swiftly and decisively. But too overt a focus on the left-brain definitely leads to callousness, as I’ve learned. I often joke with my wife that I’m the TickTock Man. He is a government agent in a dystopian science fiction story by Harlan Ellison who is part of a bureaucracy that keeps people on a strict schedule on pain of death. I may not be quite that bad, but what I next experienced showed me that there is more to life than making sure the trains run on time. If that weren’t the case, then Mussolini would be declared a saint.

 

What happened next is where things got interesting. We were driving up a hill and as we reached the peak of our ascent a giant, magnificent sunset greeted us. I saw the most radiant and warm smile I’d ever seen in my life grace the lips of my beloved and I was shot to the core with joy. I wasn’t sure if I was in the body or out of the body as St. Paul once said (2 Cor 2:12). Her body seemed to be glowing with light. She said she was going to pull over and began to without waiting for me to agree; she’d made up her mind that she was going to take this picture and I wasn’t going to stop her, as well she should have. It was as if she was compelled to acknowledge this beauty and I was being compelled as well. Things got fuzzy here, but at the same time extremely clear, my eyes felt like they had been opened for the first time. Normal thought patterns attempted to reestablish themselves and my mouth opened to voice an objection, but without me being able to explain why, it shut again and just wordlessly acceded to what was occurring.

 

I felt all manner of emotions all at once – sheer exuberant joy as well as a taint of sadness deep in the background, as I realized how many moments like this I had ruined before and probably would still ruin in the future. But that was far in the back of my mind like the distant dreamlike memory of an event I wasn’t sure had ever occurred. What pervaded my consciousness was a profound sense of peace, I felt the grasping fists of my left-brain releasing their iron grip into open palms of profound and intense awareness of the present moment of the right-brain. All my anxieties, worries, cares, plans, decisions, thoughts, etc. were melted away by the Consuming Fire of the Ineffable One. I felt like one of the lilies of the field (Mt:6:28). I finally understood, not as an abstract proposition that required my mental assent, but as a concrete reality what was meant by the peace that passeth understanding (Phil 4:7).  These words of the Lord “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world’ (Jn 16:33) all of sudden become intuitive, in fact they were so manifestly obvious that it seemed to me silly that I’d been confused by them or didn’t know how to interpret them.

 

In one glorious moment I had been unselfed of myself, my ego had died and I was set free to love my wife the way a husband is supposed to. Not as a tyrant who forces everything to go according to plan, but as someone who opens his heart to the gifts of the other and allows them to simply be and let’s life lead where it leads without having to have such dominical control over things. Once again, in a flash, I saw, as it were, the concrete reality that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). Of course, it feels good to get things you want, but such pleasures are fleeting and belong to chronos, but the simple treasures that make a more permanent impact MUST include giving selflessly the substance of oneself to another. I felt what Robin Williams character was talking about in Good Will Hunting when he told Matt Damon’s character that his wife was an angel sent by God specifically for him and likewise was he the appointed angel for her. While that is theologically incorrect, the intended meaning is clear and I experienced it in my heart that day. I knew then I would die for this woman, but at this moment I was paralyzed in the car just watching her smile and snap photos of the sunlight with glee. I couldn’t even get out of the car, I had no need to, I just needed to let her be and enjoy life. The resplendent beauty of my wife’s smile, the wondrous sunset, the experience of God, this is THE memory that I will hold onto until the very end of my life, even once all others have passed away.

 

Even though I felt like I had been transported to another dimension and been gone for a long time, I snapped back to the present chronos time and things were back to normal. There were residual “good vibe” type feelings that lasted the rest of the car ride home, but it was nothing like what I felt before because in the aeon above in Kairos time, these were experienced realities and not mere feelings or emotions. I wish I could be clearer, but language fails at this point it’s like trying to describe life on the edge of an asymptote you will never reach--it’s not possible, though you can get close. I have been spending the last several years in a fervent spiritual search regarding the great questions of life: Who am I? Who is God? Is He real? What do I want? Where am I going and why? What is the ultimate source of all things? How should I live my life?

 

I’ve read hundreds of book and  tried out a few different religions over the past few years and I am happy where I’ve ended up, but even though it somewhat prepared me for this “experience,” nothing really helped it along. I’ve meditated and prayed long hours in the hopes of experiencing something like this and it never happened. Then one day when I’m in a foul mood and acting like a real a-hole, the Great Maker (as Londo Mollari would say) compels me against my will for a moment to let go of my stupidity, arrogance, and selfishness and just like that (*snap of the fingers*) He turns it off. I pierced the veil of this world and glimpsed into eternity for one precious moment and was sent back and I had no idea how or why it happened at that specific moment. I now think I know a bit more about why upon reading Evagrius who in his chapters on prayer says:

 

 

“Blessed is the monk who regards every man as God after God” (121)

 

“Blessed is the monk who looks with great joy on everyone’s salvation and progress as if they were his own” (122)

 

“A monk is one who is separated from all and united with all” (124)

 

“A monk is one who regards himself as linked with every man, through always seeing himself in each” (125)

 

 

I want to dedicate this essay to my wife who is the soul who God appointed to take care of me and lead me on the path of salvation and she does a marvelous job of it. Since this occasion I still have not perfected what I learned in this and other experiences, but I hope to keep bettering myself and be a better husband to her and friend to all. She is the most beautiful woman on the planet in my eyes and la llama de mi Corazon and I hope the Infinite One blesses us with many more years on this earth. As current events and social unrest show, there is much strife and travail in this current hellish half-creation, but I know in my bones that this will be rectified in the age to come and every tear will be wiped away from every face (Rev 21:4).

Although I think logical arguments are very important, the most powerful truths are conveyed under the force of their own power in your experience. No less an authority than Plato said as much in Gorgias. Plato wrote that everything is opinion unless you are absolutely certain of it, only then does it become knowledge. For instance, the fact that you have two eyes is such an immediate truth that doesn’t require argument; if someone tried to convince you otherwise, you’d be fully justified in walking away from them, unable to waste time entertaining spurious pseudo-argument. I am truly convinced by the likes of Pierre Hadot and Stephen R.L. Clark that philosophy is a way of life rather than an engagement in abstract argument that begins with an experience and is aided by ascetic endeavor. The experience I had that day showed me that St. Paul was indeed right when he said “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Rom 8:18).” That is a truth that one either sees and comprehends or does not see and does not comprehend. Of course it is also logical, finite suffering is trumped by infinite bliss every time, but it is often hard to see that in our present state. That’s why faith is called for, which of course, does not mean believing irrational things that cannot be proven, but rather holding onto and putting into action what you know to be true and fighting for what you believe in even when your weakness is demanding that you cave into baser passions that are threatening the abandonment of reason. Now it becomes clear what St. Thomas Aquinas meant when he wrote: “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” If someone tries to tell me that God does not exist, that He isn’t Love, or that not everyone will be saved I will react just as strongly and swiftly as if they told me I really have 17 eyes and I’m just under the illusion I have two. It is utter nonsense and balderdash and I KNOW, I do not just think so.

 

 I apologize if the these reflections are too long-winded, but writing is a creative outlet that makes me feel as if I am a child at play in the fields of the Lord as Ray Bradbury was wont to say.

 

This experience showed me that we all need to take time to learn to be and not just to do. We need to rid ourselves of the distractions that keep us from seeing ourselves for what we truly are, rays of God’s own light. Instead we identify with our thoughts and emotions and allow them to keep us in a predictable, morose, and inane cycle. During this plague that is forcing us to confront our demons, we should take this time as an opportunity to look within and see our own innate beauty that comes from being stamped as images of the Most High. We must work on increasing the activity of our right brains (to put it in crudely material terms) IN ORDER to practice love and compassion. I think if we do that we can increase the amount of joy, peace, and love in the world, which is the noblest aspiration of man. And even though evil will certainly not be eradicated in this life, I can rejoice with Marc Antony who perhaps even more pithily than St. Paul stated that in the next age all will be well as Dame Julian of Norwich also attested to: En hora buena, valio la pena.

 

 

I will end with a few quotes from my patron saint, the blessed St. Isaac of Syria:

 

“A swimmer dives into the sea naked in order to find a pearl. A wise monk journeys through life, stripped of all that he has, to find within himself the pearl, Jesus Christ, and finding him, he no longer seeks to acquire anything besides him.”

 

“The pain which gnaws the heart as the result of sinning against love is sharper than all other tormetns that there are. The power of love works in two ways: it torments those who have sinned, just as happens among friends here on earth; but to those who have observed its duties, love gives delight.”

 

“As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God.”

 

What is a merciful heart?

It is a heart on fire

for the whole of creation,

for humanity,

for the birds,

for the animals,

for demons,

and for all that exists.

By the recollection of them

the eyes of a merciful person

pour forth tears in abundance.

By the strong and vehement mercy

that grips such a person’s heart,

and by such great compassion,

the heart is humbled

and one cannot bear to hear or to see

any injury or slight sorrow

in any in creation.

For this reason, such a person

offers up tearful prayer continually

even for irrational beasts,

for the enemies of the truth,

and for those who harm him,

that they be protected and receive mercy…

because of the great compassion

that burns without measure

in a heart that is

in the likeness of God.

 

St. Isaac the Syrian

Homily 81

 

Peace be to all. To Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ we ascribe all glory and dominion, along with His Unoriginate Father, and the Life-Giving Holy Spirit, both now and forever and unto ages of ages. Amen.