“Are we not all cowards, here, in the comforts of this hotel pontificating on what ought to be, what we would want to see; yet, forever delaying the day? Are we not cowards, to have great visions buried under the unease calm of safety, waiting, hoping that one day the King would come calling; is change ever freely given?”
Those were my words to a friend yesterday, it was a bit more pointed than that though; to an extent we agreed that in our patience, we could sense another feeling – the sense that we could do a lot better, if we were a bit bolder. Our concern was for the nation, yet the subject matter appeals to an even greater truth – the human burden in the light of a soul contorted by the vicissitudes of life.
The Caricature of the Soul
Life happens; to us all and she leaves her marks. The human ideal of joy and happiness are ideals not even conceived by everyone, some have never known it; to some, life has been a bitter pill from the beginning, hence, the hope of joy and happiness is something quite different from the norm; yet something none-the-less.
To some, joy and happiness is to overcome their burden – to beat the odds that have beaten them for as long as they can remember; to some who’ve never had such odds, the ideal is of a different nature altogether.
Hence, since the soul should in its perfect soul be of a particular sort, we often do not even know of what sort it is, yet, we feel it; and we feel it so strongly. We share a common burden, the burden of the soul; to attain to a certain utopia – a utopia that constantly eludes us.It is the chase of this utopia that has made the best and the worst of us; urged on by his diverse contortions, man has strived, pushed and shoved to attain this illusory light – to some, nobility, to some, ignobility. Weighed on by his burden, man have in the process lost something so unique, yet so easily lost – his conscious self.
The Animal Man
He is a lot more clever than the ape; could be socially literate, financially literate, yet an animal none the less. A creature of instincts, of flesh, nerves and bones. The animal man is very much like the real man, the difference is that the former is not really conscious; he is not awake. You must have seen him, this animal man, he could fool you; like the beautiful sculpture, it is almost alive, but it is not.
The animal man is man who had labored at the burden of hope, found it tiresome and had gone to sleep, a deep sleep; yet dances to the sway and tunes of the times. In fact, only to that tune; the great noise of the universe is his dreamland, he sings along, dances along, prays along, speaks along, sleeps along and dies along.
Now, I must say this; will not hold back, yes, the animal man is at sync with the caricature of his soul; he is defined by it, motivated by it, praised and rewarded by it. These different caricatures in its diversities typifies persons, people groups and cultures; as if forged by fire, the soul of man bends to the ills of his time and somehow stays frozen by it, stone hard; immune to change.
When we say people of different cultures behave in particular way; we refer to their unique caricatures.It is not that this man loves all of his caricatures, he hates it and hates it even more in others; hence, he is not only bent, he is also alone. The height of this liberty is insanity, a phenomenon so much more common in our world. Hence, national development is not enough, civil liberties are not enough, not even human rights could help this animal of a man. Great ideals no doubt, yet attuned best to man; liberty is great, but not for pigs – it would kill him; and yes, the animal man kills himself, by his liberty. So, we must wake him up, for nothing else will do.
Truthful Grace
An ape cannot make itself into a man, but God can do so; hence, the term “grace”. Not that it is unmerited, but that it is God-given, this ability to be alive. At creation, that something upon which God breathed, of course is not man, he is the object of which I’ve been talking about.
But that entity with whom He conversed after He had breathed, is fully man. The Great Spirit, God; is Truth, in Him there is no variableness, no contortions, no caricatures. He breathes unto dead men to make them alive, and He breathes unto them in truth. “Sanctify them by your word, your word is Truth”; Truthful grace calls our caricatures what it is – sin, and only the contorted man who is humble enough will accept this. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”; only the humble can come alive.
Only the Penitent
I read quite a lot of Indiana Jones growing up and one particular line in his adventures had left an indelible mark in my memory, the place where he had to pass “The Breath of God” – one of the 3 puzzles to be passed before one could have access to the grail cup.
A lot of Indiana Jones’ colleagues had been beheaded as they tried to cross the dark tunnel; as his turn came and he wondered what the words “only the penitent shall pass” meant, he remembered from Scripture that “the penitent man is a humble man before the Lord, the penitent man kneels before the Lord”! He immediately knelt, and missed the sharp blade that almost had his head.
Humble Living
Humble living is truthful living, it is the sincere understanding of the human condition, of its bondages and contortions, it is also the commitment to truth in love; and the knowledge that only those who can humbly come would in reality experience the life they had longed for all their lives. Nothing else will do.
