I'm in my study, as is so often the case on a Saturday. The Canada geese are outside on the creek, calling not just to the present moment, but to time itself. Like all living creatures, they gather life unto themselves and carry it with them in their flock.
Waking up this morning, I also gather life unto myself. It is a subtle vibration that flows into being within me. The presence of God, which is objective, does not belong to me, and already sustains me in this moment. I sense it as a personal presence; a silence that puts its demand upon this moment from within and from underneath – a support from the molecules of life themselves.
As I attend to this, the undertone of sorrow that sustains the universe makes itself known – not as the overwhelming force of remorse of conscience that is sometimes available to help, but as a tiny presence that is not just a sorrow, but also a friend.
This reminds me of something I was taught yesterday through life itself, in a simple and ordinary exchange. I called my nephew Tom to wish him a happy birthday. His mother – my sister Sarah, who died in 2011— is no longer here to do that for him; and although I held it together during the phone call, the sense of grief that overcame me during the conversation caused me to break down in tears for a moment after I hung up the phone.
This reminds me of something I was taught yesterday through life itself, in a simple and ordinary exchange. I called my nephew Tom to wish him a happy birthday. His mother – my sister Sarah, who died in 2011— is no longer here to do that for him; and although I held it together during the phone call, the sense of grief that overcame me during the conversation caused me to break down in tears for a moment after I hung up the phone.
I understood from this moment that it’s my responsibility to carry my own grief; life includes both the capacity and the need for grieving. I'm reminded, by association, of the chorus in The Trojan women where the women dress the corpse of Astyanax for burial:
Beat, beat thine head:
Beat with the wailing chime
Of hands lifted in time:
Beat and bleed for the dead.
Woe is me for the dead!
In summary, Hecuba remarks,
Go, women, lay our dead
In his low sepulcher. He hath his meed
Of robing. And, methinks, but little care
Toucheth the tomb, of they that moulder there
Have rich encerëment. ’Tis we, ’tis we,
That dream, we living and our vanity!
(Taken from the Gilbert Murray translation.)
The image of hands lifted in time evokes an offering up of life. The gesture is as ancient for man as the call of the geese on the creek; the references to dreams and vanity remind us that we are both asleep and selfish. It is not death that brings sleep and illusion, but life – how deftly Euripedes brings this insight!
At the same time, in confronting time and death, which are the two real subjects of this part of the play, we offer up: we witness. It is the action of Being itself that provides this witness. The catastrophe of the fall of Troy provides a moment of seeing what life really is; and herein lies the value. In the same way, the recent arrival of CoVID-19 as a force on the planet provides an equal stimulus to seeing where we actually are, as opposed to where our imaginations place us. We are here to fulfill our responsibility as living creatures by witnessing and Being, not through the imaginary "achievements" which mark our lives. It is the action of living and the taking in of the impressions of life as a sacred task that actually matter; and we honor both life and God if we undertake this task without the pretensions and arrogance that characterize most of our day-to-day activity. It is, in the end, our character that matters.
Perhaps a wide ranging excursion, given that I begin here sitting in my chair, immersed in the inward flow of Being and that whisper of a finer, more precisely attuned feeling which accompanies any legitimate investment in sensation.
But there one is; perhaps it illustrates the potential scope of intellect when it is grounded in this first grain of Being, rather than the air.
But there one is; perhaps it illustrates the potential scope of intellect when it is grounded in this first grain of Being, rather than the air.
Today I hope to offer myself to life with all the joy and optimism of living itself, as well as the intensity of grief and mourning. Not dramatized, but lived quite directly and with as much honesty as can be brought to the present moment.
Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.
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