Guest guest Posted August 31, 2006 Report Share Posted August 31, 2006 My Dearest Friends at HS, After the very beautiful photograph posted immediately below, there's an in-the-fire inquiry of something I'm reading and regarding (in pertinance to my own self, my own everyday life, and inquiry), about the root of all our suffering, and not from the typical, spiritual-mill wisdom-information/teaching source, but rather from a regular, everyday person like you and like me, simply and determinedly trying to understand what motivates himself, and all we humans ... and to embrace and embody that truth of his being seen by being utterly and openly honest and sincere with himself, and with all others concerning what comes up for him, and for/and in relation to, each one of us in our lives .... and deaths ~ Introspections and Observations, copied out in the past few days from ... "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through? It doesn't matter that all the photographs of H. are bad. It doesn't matter - not much - if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage - is it not in some ways an advantage - that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle. Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference if they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images - sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are "offended" by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayers. All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still, after she is dead. But "this" is not now imaginable. In that respect H. and all the dead are like God. In that respect loving her has become, in its measure, like loving Him. In both cases I must stretch out the arms and hands of love - its eyes cannot here be used - to the reality, through - across - all the changeful phantasmagoria itself and worship that for Him, or love that for her. Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor. For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive - who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture - almost the precis - we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact. In real life - that's one way it differs from novels - his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite "in character," that is, in what we call his character. There's always a card in his hand we didn't know about. My reason for assuming that I do this to other people is the fact that so often I find them obviously doing it to me. We all think we've got one another taped. And all this time I may, once more, be building with cards. And if I am He will once more knock the building flat. He will knock it down as often as proves necessary... Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there's any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all. That's what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions "on the further shore;" not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End. Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love so much that I don't care if I meet her or not? Consider, Lord, how it looks to us. What would anyone think of me if I said to the boys, "No toffee now. But when you've grown up and don't really want toffee you shall have as much of it as you choose?" If I knew that to be eternally divided from H. and eternally forgotten by her would add a greater joy and splendor to her being, of course I'd say, "Fire ahead." Just as if, on earth, I could have cured her cancer by never seeing her again, I'd have arranged never to see her again. I'd have had to. Any decent person would. But that's quite different. That's not the situation I'm in. When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "No answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand." ~ C.S. Lewis, from "A Grief Observed" As I Am, Mazie __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 31, 2006 Report Share Posted August 31, 2006 A beautiful introspection by Lewis. I can't do it justice, but I can at least try. In recent years, the source of my own suffering has become progressively more clear, and in that clarity, itself, has dissolved virtually all suffering but that deep, immutable longing to know the Truth. Still, this is clearly how it must be, and this bittersweet love, as the song says, is killing me softly, and breaking my heart with the most exquisite grace. It began three years ago with my learning in the most unpleasant way, that I was to love myself first: that a vessel empty of love has nothing to offer; that love cannot be bartered, begged or stolen from another for there truly is no other. Love is sourced from within the self, and the other is merely a reflection of that love. Self love is self acceptance, which is indeed a surrender to love; a surrender of the battle for self improvement; the silencing of that critical voice. In self acceptance there is acceptance of other. In this loving acceptance is peace, which is also found to be sourced from within. In this growing peace is joy. I drew into my life a loving partner who walks this path with me. It's a relationship without need or expectation, and therefore without conflict. We are mirrors for each other, reflecting our own love back to us with crystal clarity. Duality cannot be cheated and the world will always allow our savoring of joy only on the condition of our eventual sorrow. All seekers come to know this and this is when the struggle with the world ends and one seeks, instead, the source of the world. Love given birth from within cannot be shaken by the events of the world, neither is peace and joy the least bit vulnerable, though the mind must hold it's tongue and the heart remain open no matter what. Where I stand right now is mostly as observer of the wonders and perfection swirling around me and somehow keeping me warm and safe. It's unclear that I have anything at all to do with it, and more and more this is quite satisfactory to me. The illusion of choice is not relinquished by choice, as must be obvious, but by the reluctant surrender to that which is living me but is yet unknown to me, and has yet to betray me. Phil In a message dated 8/30/2006 9:33:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, sraddha54 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com writes: My Dearest Friends at HS, After the very beautiful photograph posted immediately below, there's an in-the-fire inquiry of something I'm reading and regarding (in pertinance to my own self, my own everyday life, and inquiry), about the root of all our suffering, and not from the typical, spiritual-mill wisdom-information/teaching source, but rather from a regular, everyday person like you and like me, simply and determinedly trying to understand what motivates himself, and all we humans ... and to embrace and embody that truth of his being seen by being utterly and openly honest and sincere with himself, and with all others concerning what comes up for him, and for/and in relation to, each one of us in our lives .... and deaths ~ Introspections and Observations, copied out in the past few days from ... "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through? It doesn't matter that all the photographs of H. are bad. It doesn't matter - not much - if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage - is it not in some ways an advantage - that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle. Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference if they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images - sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are "offended" by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayers. All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still, after she is dead. But "this" is not now imaginable. In that respect H. and all the dead are like God. In that respect loving her has become, in its measure, like loving Him. In both cases I must stretch out the arms and hands of love - its eyes cannot here be used - to the reality, through - across - all the changeful phantasmagoria itself and worship that for Him, or love that for her. Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor. For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive - who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture - almost the precis - we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact. In real life - that's one way it differs from novels - his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite "in character," that is, in what we call his character. There's always a card in his hand we didn't know about. My reason for assuming that I do this to other people is the fact that so often I find them obviously doing it to me. We all think we've got one another taped. And all this time I may, once more, be building with cards. And if I am He will once more knock the building flat. He will knock it down as often as proves necessary... Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there's any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all. That's what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions "on the further shore;" not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End. Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love so much that I don't care if I meet her or not? Consider, Lord, how it looks to us. What would anyone think of me if I said to the boys, "No toffee now. But when you've grown up and don't really want toffee you shall have as much of it as you choose?" If I knew that to be eternally divided from H. and eternally forgotten by her would add a greater joy and splendor to her being, of course I'd say, "Fire ahead." Just as if, on earth, I could have cured her cancer by never seeing her again, I'd have arranged never to see her again. I'd have had to. Any decent person would. But that's quite different. That's not the situation I'm in. When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "No answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand." ~ C.S. Lewis, from "A Grief Observed" As I Am, Mazie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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