the kittens are sleeping, my dear,

in the amber woods next door.

we may not find them yet, but

be sure there's plenty more.

 

here we have time for peeping

over boughs and under cars,

for making cattish noises, till

they peek out like night stars.

 

here we have space for chasing

white paws and meteor tails,

for dusting the sky with catnip,

till they stream out like the gale.

 

for we have love enough, my dear,

to love though our hearts are sore

a year may pass without a purr, but

be sure there's plenty more.

Dearest Friend,

 

My deepest apologies for the lateness of this reply. Your mail has not eluded my mind for a single week or day even, but each time I wished to write back on this issue which you have so thoughtfully mulled over, I could not but help hear my heart whispering against my pen. For the love you spoke of, is not a trivial love – it is in fact the acme of living, what it is to be truly human, and lest I myself can lay claims to having embodied it, I dare not write flippantly of it.

 

But before I go on, I only want to say how happy I am to hear of how you are growing so deeply, quietly and inwardly, with the faithfulness of a budding flower and a ripening fruit – facing the elements of each day with a greater fortitude that you are coming to discover within yourself. And you put it all so beautifully - I could definitely detect in your sentences the same flowing diction and sensitivity that Rilke had built his life and works upon.

 

Now to return to the issue at hand, which you have undeniably made loftier. For I started out intentionally with the purpose of analyzing a baser, showier and more sensuous kind of love, and you rightfully averted it to where the jewel was at hand – the agape sort of love, and the love which, rather than being the starting-point of passion, is, I believe the end-point of inward understanding and expansion. And as the subject grows more divine, so too must the mind of one who deals with it, and not only the mind but the very being – for it would be a real sham if one were to think about love and espouse upon it, but not live it. Your letter then has forced me to attempt to do so – I dare not say that I have succeeded, but I think that for work of such a nature, it would take, as Rilke said, much difficult preparation. As I hardly can wait till then before offering you a reply, I must now resume some courage and beg for your kind understanding and forgiveness for my less than perfect rejoinder.

 

First, having left the lower plane, we are in need of a new definition of the love we are striving at. The thorny issue is that this is exactly where the problem lies – you have well encapsulated it by saying, “Love is ineffable”. But if we are to seek a common understanding now, that would not do. I thus propose that we take a leaf from a source that is sufficiently divine to shed some light on this towering enigma - that is, the scriptures. There are many instances where the word “love” is used, but I ought to highlight two and see where we can go from there. First, there is the stated relationship that God is Love – the specific verse it issues from is 1 John 4:16 and I quote it here in full for our benefit, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him”. Second, there is the very famous passage from 1^st Corinthians 13 – I have it as an ornamental plate atop my study table, and shall thus replicate it here as well: “Love is patient, love is kind and envies no one. Love is never rude nor quick to take offence. It keeps no records of wrongs. Love thinks no evil but rejoices in the truth. Love never gives up and its faith, hope and endurance never fail. Love is eternal”. These lines fit remarkably well with the requirement that you reminded me about – that to define love, one cannot merely list a catalogue of its symptoms. This, in being obviously definitional in syntax, seems to be apt enough. And then of course, we shall seek to combine all these with your own sentiments, so poetically expressed, – “…I do not mean the love that flings itself with abandon, or one that burns red hot. I mean the love that is far more enduring like the heat of the blue stars, perhaps less showy at first glance, but no less powerful”. With this tripartite structure in place, I think our minds ought to have roughly stepped in line with each other, with each picturing a sort of love which bears a mystical relation, a divine definition as well as a textural sensation (this last aspect having surfaced from your own words).

 

Now for so vast a topic, I hardly know where to start. But I think the best place would be a place that I have been to once, and only once fully, in the strangeness of a certain night. I did not expect to go there, nor can I now retrace the steps if I wish to, for the path was a magical one – arriving and then fading off into the brightening air. I have not found it since, but I remember it. I am being vague now, but halt your thoughts from images of a one night stand – no, it was far more passionate, intense and curious than that. And for this reason also, far more ineffable – but I shall try my best nonetheless, to make it out to you. Imagine for a moment, that the veil of this world was pulled back like a curtain to grant you a full and astounding glimpse of eternity. Imagine that this eternity was of so potent a nature that it flew right into and inhabited your heart so that you could not, despite all efforts, conceive of yourself as a singular entity locked in the hands of time. All you could understand was the infinitude of the moment, the never-ending depth of beauty and the great shyness you had in being so privileged to witness and experience it all. Imagine too, that in your heart, there no longer remained any possible means for you to construe the notion of ‘self’ – the very idea of it had been discarded and left somewhere like a pallid rag, swept away by the wind to a far off and forgotten place. And with that, all the restrain, all the tiny loves one carries so secretly, all the fearful thoughts, all shades of worry, impatience or frustration are consumed and replaced with a light of utmost brilliance that reaches forth and illuminates everything. I felt like the prisoner in Plato’s cave who had stepped out and beheld, with shocking intensity, the full glory of the sun. If you know me as one who writes words that are always abstract and mildly hyperbolic, then for this temporary moment, you must discard such conceptions – for that night, without rhyme or reason, without words or thoughts, I lay on my bed and for hours cried; cried great glistening streams of joy. I did not sleep an inch and when morning came such freedom and joy was still abounding in my heart. I can’t remember how it left me though, but it did leave me soon enough, going as magically as it came.

 

While the memory of that night has not failed, the fresh remembrance of it is no longer with me. But whenever I think of heaven, I am rather certain that it will be something like how I felt that night, only fuller and rounder: the balm of pure eternity – not in length or breadth or depth of time, but in the unending and unshackled expanse of inward light. For when we get there, I know that all the heavy and drowsy medicine of the here and the now, the ego and the I, that this world feeds us with continuously and lays upon us like heavy burdens, will dissolve from us like an insubstantial dream, like a robe that is no longer fit for wearing - and we will wake with a new heart in a world of insuperable joy and beauty, leaping like calves from the stalls, and setting off to the hills upon the melody of the sweetest flutes.

 

But how, you may ask, does this all link back to love, that we had set forth as our topic? May I be so bold as to make the claim that that was love, and is love, though it may seem to be a completely different feeling from what the world imagines love to be? For it is overwhelming, but not heady; overpoweringly passionate, but not sensual; utterly forgetful of the self, yet not the worse for that. It is one part ache and one part delight, but regardless of anything, it is total. It is much like what you spoke of – like the heat of blue stars, less showy, but no less (and in fact far more) powerful. And while that vision stayed with me, I had an inkling that I ought to check if it were the manifestation of the most excellent way that Paul had spoken of. I ran through the list of 1^st Corinthians 13 in my mind – could I, in the thralls of such an eternity, imagine anything that could make me impatient, that could make me lose faith or hope or endurance? I found naught possibility; could I, in the utter disbandment of my ego, imagine any thing that could cause me to harbour envy, or offense, or to keep records of wrongs? I searched in vain, for indeed, whatever of these foul things I carried in the past had dissolved in the moment. And could I, on the whole, in the immeasurability of such beauty, find myself unable to rejoice in the truth? Nay, it would have been easier for me to go through the eye of a needle. And then it hit me: for all the while, I had always comprehended the resounding last verse, “love is eternal”, to mean that love will not fade away, though heaven and earth should fall into the darkest abyss; that love will live on further than the end of time, beyond the creation of a thousand new universes. But now, another meaning had opened up like a silver pathway – perhaps, what it is saying is that love is not just transcendental, but transcendence itself; love is living fully in the paradigm of eternity. For when we do so we cannot possibly, as I had tested, not love. As T.S Eliot writes in the Four Quartets, 

 

            “Love is most nearly itself

            When here and now cease to matter.”

 

I had read these two lines, so simple and naked, before but always in passing. Only after that night, and even more so now as I type this letter, do I grasp its meaning more fully.

 

I have rambled on long enough to make one single point – that love is transcendence. But all this shall be in vain if we leave it at its mystical roots, and fail to find a clear way to it. For we cannot, like ascetics or monks, seek to usher this infinitude into our hearts with much detachment or meditation; and neither can we expect to receive this golden crown without much difficulty and endurance. The visitation I most undeservingly had that night was to me like a revelation of what lay at the end of this difficult road of loving, but it was not the arrival at it. When two young lovers meet, they euphorically bask in each other and forget themselves, thinking that the glory of love has dawned and made their union perfect. But they should be wrong to think that they have achieved anything more than a promissory vision of what things will be like after they each put in years of hard work, toil, tears and self-sacrificial giving along a road which will oft times seem pallid and uninspiring. Perhaps that it is why so many fall out of marriage – lovers think that the bliss of their first moments of union and consummation should last forever, forgetting that it must pass, not vainly as a wraith of smoke dissolves, but as the making of a promise must pass into its final fruition; and that when it passes, the union must not be abandoned, but worked harder at, so that the vision they beheld might turn into reality. Let us then, not make the same mistake as young lovers here – let us enquire how we may work the soil, and tend the garden, so that rather than merely clinging on to a vision or an intuition, we may let love flourish fully in our hearts.

 

As we have seen thus far, in order to love, we must grasp the eternal. To grasp the eternal, we must know the eternal and have the eternal live within us. And if there is anything fully eternal and unchanging, it is undeniably God, who has been and will be for all eternity. We then reach our second precept: To love, we must assimilate ourselves with God - “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him”. The problem is that so many miss this step – the age we inhabit is a strange and contradictory one, on the one hand fully cynical and on the other hand fully naive. All around us we see people tying themselves in knots when they cling steadfastly and stubbornly to the idea that love is preeminent but deny, with scornful derision, God, who in being the eternal one, is the only fount of love. They try to love with their own herculean efforts, but it always fumbles and falls because they have no grasp of the eternal, and so end up loving out of their more transitory desires, or their more obstinate egos. And I think, with the aid of Plato, we can analyze this phenomenon more fully. I apologize in advance however that the path I am taking to reach a final conclusion here is and must be of so meandering a nature. It is a vast land we have to traverse upon and I know as yet no other way.

 

Plato thought that we humans are composed of a tripartite psychology – that is, we have three main sources of motivation, which are oft times conflicting. First, there is the desire to satisfy one’s instincts and those perceived lacks which are related to one’s instincts. Here, I would take this to mean the fleshly desire for instinctual pleasure of all sorts – be it sex or gourmet dining. Second, there is the desire for preservation of one’s ‘sense of I’, or in other words, the ego. It has to do, I believe, with making an impression on others, keeping up one’s reputation and protecting one’s dignity. This second desire often comes into conflict with the first – we witness it when one fights the temptation to eat, in order to stay slim, or fights the temptation to play, in order to study and impress one’s tutors and so on and so forth. Third, there is the desire for knowledge and truth. Plato termed this part the ‘rational’ part, but it is of far more significance than mere intellectual desire – for he wrote, that in this realm, we seek and strive for assimilation with God, who is unchanging, unvarying, one and eternal. Being ‘rational’ was not merely about being a good logician; it was about perceiving, with our inward organ, goodness and the entire train of beauty and virtue. This desire, if awakened, would lead us on into the eternal realm divorced from the flesh and the ego, wherein lays the true riches, the immeasurability of life, and the deepest secrets all angels ache to peer into.

 

If you have followed me thus far, you must understand my point that it is this third part of our nature which we have to awaken in order to love wholly and properly and abundantly - to love with the heat of blue stars, enduringly. I believe the other two desires are not bad, but I believe that they are bad rulers - they cannot, in any case, be appropriated as the taskmasters of our loving. This I think both of us heartily agree upon. But what is not so clear, as you said, is how to ensure, that we are loving from the third plane and not “crossing the line of ego”. This is where I must make what seems to be a digression in order to undertake the task of proving what I believe – that the true loving we talk about, and we seek to strive for, can hardly be done without faith and without Christ.

 

I have an idea that the temporality of our beings was fully induced at the moment of our prelapsarian demise – that is, the movement into our flesh and our ego. For in eating the forbidden fruit, our forefathers had introduced into our systems the ego, in their desire to be like God under the serpent’s temptation, and the flesh, in their instinctual pleasure of tasting the fruit. They had allowed far baser substances to rule over the nobler spirit; the spirit which was God’s eternal breath of life. In their souls they bore a dark eclipse, the fall, more than being a fall into sin, was also a fall out of eternity into the deadly clasps of the temporal – “from dust you came and to dust you shall return”. Thus with us as well – we bear this contagious disease from our birth. We have lost the immortal within us, for it has been subdued by our other two aspects. And that is why the significance of Christ yielding his life is so great – for is it not clear that as Adam ate the fruit and so crucified the spirit and brought into raging existence the flesh, so Christ reversed the process through crucifying His flesh upon the cross, and resurrecting into incorrigible life the Spirit. And with that too, comes the great promise to us that as He died and rose again, so too can we by that measure of faith, die to our flesh and rise again to live fully in the eternal spirit, from which we can love eternally. Our faith needs to be seen as infinitely more than a doctrine; it is the crux of life and of loving. This must be why the New Testament perpetually refers to Christ living in us – for only in His immortality abiding in us, can we ourselves love immortally and abundantly.

 

Thus it seems that the first practical step to loving is the step of faith. To have Christ, the living God, in us is to become, as you put it, “world within ourselves”. And when we have grown into such a world and such an infinity, then there need be no fear of losing ourselves in loving, for we become, like Him, inexhaustible. But this heavenly apex must as yet seem to be separated from us by acres upon acres of hollow lands and hilly lands, miles upon miles of thorns and briars. How then shall we continue, what other markers may guide our feet surely across this foggy and oft times bewildering path? Here, I shall invoke Eliot’s tremulous voice once more:

 

            “Old men ought to be explorers

            Here or there does not matter

            We must be still and still moving

            Into another intensity

            For a further union, a deeper communion

            Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

            The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

            Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.”

 

 

In my end is my beginning. I think, that it is much as the scripture says – that daily there is the need to die to self, not meaninglessly, not slavishly, not in a manner of mere abstinence or self-flagellation, but in manner in which we fully trust and believe that in so doing, a thousand awful chains are falling off from our hands and feet. We have to know that we die into a greater life and a fuller joy and a beginning where we can love with a love that is shockingly infinite and whole. But this process is long, and oft times tiring; it takes us through the dark cold and the empty desolation, the wave cry, the wind cry and the vast waters, but we must hold on - hold on to the difficult as Rilke says; hold on to the belief that a further union and deeper communion awaits us; hold on to loving, which is being one with the eternal. And in this too, lies the space for much solitude and deep pondering, for much prayer and much learning – for if we follow Plato’s tripartite theory, then it must be the case that any energy spent solely and intently on the temporal aspects of our being is energy diverted from the everlasting aspect. To consume our lives with anxiety over the self or an endless hankering after pleasures which drift like the wind, must make us very poor in the art of loving. No, we must be still and still moving.

 

If thus far I have seemed to conflate so many things at once into the issue at hand, the only honest defense I can offer you is this: We cannot increase our love in the way one treats a spot, marking it off in isolation, for love is the very force of our being and for it to shine, we must put off our old cloaks and be made new – we must be utterly reborn. And this I believe is what the whole journey is about. But here my pen must stop, and here my heart must resume the journey.

 

I do not know exactly where I am, I do not know how much further I have to go; I only know that I have taken countless wrong turns and suffered countless scraps from falling, I only know my feet are far too often tired and the wind awfully chilly. But I also know above all that for you and I, there is a light within us, sometimes strong and valiant, sometimes weaker and more faltering, but always inextinguishable, that will lead us on. And the prayers I offer for you are the prayers of a fellow sojourner – that this light will keep us in the darkest moments, that it will be our song of hope in our deepest despair, and that it will bring us finally home to traveler’s rest and journey’s end, where we shall love fully and completely.

 

You are sincerely in my heart. 

 

How is it that one who declares in her prayers such statements of humility - such as “Lord, you are the source of my strength, with you I can do nothing, please multiply me and make me fruitful” – can at the same time so easily harbour in her heart, a few paces away when the prayer has been answered, an insidious and creeping pride, which basks in a false glory? Why too did the Israelites, though continuously humbled and reminded that it was grace and grace alone which was leading them to that better land during their sojourning in the wilderness, slip so easily into complacency and vainglory: building out of the blessings God had finally given them idols for themselves? Here, I wish to focus on whether or not there is a continuity between the talents and blessings we have been given and our pride – is there something dichotomous and impossible about being rich and also humble at the same time? When we say rich – we must bring in two different scenarios: one wherein the possessor seems to be the legitimate ‘winner’ of those riches, and one wherein the possessor acknowledges, if not throughout, then at least at one clear moment in time, that she has not earned, but received it.

 

Let us start with the first scenario: If one is born a genius, and is ignorant of God, and also of the need for a greater salvation, he can easily fall into complacency, thinking that surely, everything coming forth from Him that so enraptures the crowd must be due entirely to his own wit and innate talent. And if he practiced a standard of morality which he feels to be reasonable and adequate enough according to the basic precepts of his conscience, then to himself, he must seem rather respectable and lovable. In such scenarios, the concept of humility would be far from him: his being, so elevated, rises above the shadows of inadequacy and guilt; and there would be nothing that could inspire him to bend his knee. But perhaps we have been a little too callous with the analysis – many great thinkers, notably and usually scientists and mathematicians, do feel insignificant when they glimpse, if not the majesty of a single a mountain, then the vastness of the unsearchable galaxy. When the laws of nature elude and escape them, and the big unanswerable questions flare up in their minds, and they slur and slur over a muddle of continuously refuted theories and upturned axioms, their genius meets a greater cosmic genius, and if they are honest enough, this can prove an open door for humility to come in. Alas, these days, this becomes rarer: the rapid progress of science, the increasing complexity of human thought, the basin of reductionism that has tipped over onto earth, all give the illusion that nothing remains so uncontainable or unsearchable – that soon enough, our spiraling towers shall knock and throw down the stars.

 

But to go on about this now would be to miss an issue closer to heart – the second scenario. In this issue we change the starting conditions such that we suppose this: that one is not born a prodigy (and is aware of this fact), is not ignorant of God and also not only aware of the need for a greater salvation, but also for a greater power to lift him above the daily grind of life, the uprising mountains of difficulty and the murky pools of inadequacy. Supposing all these conditions (which are far more common and broader, belonging to the regular Oxford don as much as the man on the streets), how is then, that pride can still creep in? Perhaps if one never truly encountered God, never once felt like Jonah in the belly of the whale, never once sang the song of a miracle, there can be, not an excuse, but a clear reason – namely, the simple fact that brokenness has not set in. But how about the case of the Israelites, or the women who uttered the prayer? They knew their brokenness, they knew their inadequacy to mend things themselves, but it seems that when the blessings were received, and the old earthen clays were replaced with golden cups, the increase in prosperity seemed to ossify and shroud out their sensibilities, coating the soft and tender wool of humility with a hard veneer of recklessness and pride. How did this slip happen, can we truly believe that they would so willingly offend their maker, or was this shift something more insidious that caught them too by surprise? If so, we would do good to understand it better – knowledge is the first step to conquering our enemy – and how better to understand it than by tracing our own personal experiences, or more accurately, and I shall leave the collective pronoun now though it leaves me more isolated and vulnerable, mine.

 

When I am in the wasteland of my own barrenness, and in the throes of sharp inadequacy, I think it fair to say that pride is far away – I am too desperate to be proud, too in need of ransom. Only a fool, nay, a lunatic, would, having realized his nakedness, still strut about on the street rather than cower shyly behind the stalls or ask a stranger humbly for something that can cover him up. And even in less peculiarly difficult circumstances, my own mediocrity and commonality can also make me grovel on the ground and weep for His majestic light to renew my pallid robes. Here I talk of humility arising from inadequacy with regards to the constitution of my talents and being, but not in regards to my salvation – that, I believe, is where the true wellspring of humility lies, but to consider its complexity we must turn to the more banal but also more concrete issue first, to which I have a recent example; a recent example which has seemed to be like an odd and wondrous refrain strung together over these long nine months – the quest to Oxford. The precipice of humility I described above has occurred at various stages along the journey – most prominently during the moments I was trying to prepare for my examinations and also, the moments wherein all I could do was wait and try to battle my own inner despair and anxieties. The latter moments were realized most sharply during my desperate search and wait for funding, which was interpolated with rallies to surrender it all to Him, to die in order to live.  In those moments, my utter feebleness allowed me to sing truly and sincerely the words, “I am nothing without You”.

 

At this point in time, while I write this, the rocky mountains of difficulty mentioned above have been scaled, or to use perhaps, a more proper imagery, cast into the sea by a glorious might that is definitely not mine. But let us not skip a beat now – to stay true to our original mission, that is the understanding of how pride can burgeon despite our once sharp acknowledgement of brokenness, we must start at the point wherein I was plucked out of dismay. And that singular point happened when I realized, with no little amount of awe, that by a supernatural force, those primordial stone hulks were disobeying the laws of gravity, revealing glimpses of not merely blessings but overwhelming abundance that took growth beneath it – sparkling fountains, pastures of singing poppies, and the indescribably sweet aroma and comfort of heavenly boscages. In less metaphorical talk, when I realized that God had made a way, though there seemed to be no way. Thus, for example, when I wrote a very cogent economic essay of almost epic proportions which altogether surprised myself - for only the night before, I had been positively certain that doomsday laid ahead and could only beg piteously for Him to salvage me; and, as an even better example, because it completely rules out the possibility of ascribing things to my own strength, when the doors opened for funding to Oxford, first through the softening of my father’s heart (a miracle, no less) and second, through a very divine chain of interlocking events which may lead me to receive partial sponsorship to ease my father's burdens. As yet, I do not know if this would be the case, but that such a possibility could even have arisen is stunning enough.

 

Does pride then creep in during these singular moments, where blessings start to unfurl, and prosperity certainly seems to show its first sign of appearance? In my opinion and my experience, this is entirely not the case. Indeed, these very moments bring me to even greater peaks of humility. Rather than feeling exalted, my heart is immediately bewildered, my knees are spontaneously bent: I feel all at once the surging emotions of shock and delight, bashfulness and utter gratitude. To not only imagine, but truly see, that one so majestic and lofty, so incomparable and absolute, has bent down to lift me out of the darkened valley onto a beauteous ridge, does not make me glorify in myself the least bit, for I know it to be through and through an act of grace and an act of almost inordinate love. At that singular moment, the sudden clarity of light allows me to feel, grasp and know that he has given me a greater destiny to grow into – and that this destiny is neither fashionable by my own hands nor reachable by my own strength. And I think this response is natural – when the Israelites, who were on the edge of yielding in to the utter darkness of death, caught as they were between the unconquerable waters and the terrible billows of dust raised by Pharaoh’s charging army, suddenly witnessed the sea fold up majestically upon itself to provide a way of escape, self-glory, rather than parading in their hearts, must have been utterly displaced – for they knew the sudden light came not from themselves (one moment ago, the darkness had already consumed them, they were grumbling to their graves); they knew it came from the iridescent pathway that was flung out of the belly of the sea; they knew it came from God Almighty.

 

To use a simple analogy: if a kindly man, out of sheer beneficence, decides to place a million dollars (or ten million, to add gravity in such times of rampant inflation) into a beggar’s bowl, would not the beggar, upon recovering from fainting, gaze up at the giver’s face, which to him would be shining like the sun, and then immediately grovel at his feet with a million profusions of gratitude? It would be extremely odd if he should feel proud - instead, if he is not completely loss in ecstasy, he would feel utterly humbled for two main reasons: one, because someone, a total tycoon, who need not even grant two hoots about him, a poor vagabond, has not only helped him but exalted him to a state close to kingship and two, because that immense act of generosity has put to shame all his own paltry selfishness. Not only is he loved, he is undeservingly loved.

 

But if it is the case that we receive the blessings with honest humility, why and how then does pride gain a foothold? To understand this, the money analogy proves extremely useful. Imagine if the man leaves, and the beggar, left to his ten million dollars and own devices, starts to buy such things as fine clothing, sprawling houses, silver yachts, and thereby earns the massive adulation of men. Suppose then, that this adulation is so intoxicating, that he would rather put up a show and pretend that he did earn this money by his own wit and savvy, rather than let people know the truth that he was nothing more than an unmeritorious beggar, and that all the cash he has is merely an unearned gift. Perhaps at first, his conscience is disturbed, and the vestiges of humility still survive, because he at least knows his show is a lie. But a few weeks pass, a few months, then a few years – the man of beneficence, without whom the beggar would still be a beggar, is recast simply as an orphic dream, made hazier by the wisps of human admiration that so entwine and enrapture his ego. The beggar starts to be convinced that he was never a beggar. Extrapolating this analogy to my case, it would be tantamount to saying that I do not acknowledge Oxford to be a work of his grace, because it affords me greater admiration from men, if they think it a work of my own intelligence. And the most insidious thing is, as praises wear on, and the past grows cold, I may truly become convinced that my doctored version was the truth all along – therein lies that final fatal step into the dank pits of pride, therein lies the utter immorality of it all: that ignobility of self-glorification, that dishonour towards virtue, that rebellion against the Giver.

 

But some may say now, “surely that is too overt a slide into pride – I would not be so dishonourable to the facts, I would indeed return praise where praise is due, I would tell people of that magnificent kindness that made me who I am today, even though it be at the expense of my own glory.” And goodness upon you I’d say - that honesty is good; good, but not enough, because pride can too easily weaken its defenses. To see how, let us take scenario two: the beggar, having received the ten million dollars in gratefulness and humility decides to invest it shrewdly in all sorts of ventures, stocks and shares. While all this is going on, he tells people freely without the slightest bit of hesitance and falseness that his money materialized not out of his own strength, but out of a great act of beneficence, of which he was entirely undeserving. His investments start to rake in profits, and then, with his greater experience and increasing acumen, more and more profits. But through it all, he still tells people that his money was given to him, not earned. But now, he says one thing and feels another - his heart has probably acquired a dialogue which goes on as such: “Yes, the seed money was given to me by a beneficent man, blessings and blessings upon him! But the quintupling of its amount, now that was really a lot of hard work on my part”. His ego starts to glow slightly, and before you know it, it has fanned itself into a full flame, and while he still remains faithful in recounting his history of once being a beggar, it becomes to him, in all senses of the word, precisely that, mere history - gone, of the past, no longer relevant. The truth of his mendicant state is now only paid as lip service, that offers him the comforts of false humility; token statements that quickly wither in the furnace of his new achievements. But you may say, surely he has the right to take glory in what he achieved on his own? Well, would you consider a fish, that was about to die adrift upon the shore, but was picked up instead by a kind boy and flung back into the ocean, where he could then, out of his own strength and innate fish-like abilities, propel himself with his fins towards the corals where he can feed, as making any sense at all if it boasts about its own admirable strength to save itself, because it can save itself from starving whilst in the sea? I would not – for the second act is still ultimately dependent on the first. A little thought would make it clear how rather ridiculous it is. An act of grace (and the ensuing humility demanded of it) revealed at a first stage does not stop short there. It reaches out to and permeates all other stages, so that, though they are not directly caused by it, they should still nonetheless contain, in equal parts, that same fragrance of gratitude and humility.

 

Applying this to my life: If God gives me a place in Oxford, and I study hard to achieve good grades, should I feel proud at all? No! If God grants me wisdom that allows me to thirst for insights, should I feel proud if I choose to write it down and share it with others? No! If he did not first provide, nothing could be done on my part. And thankfully, to keep us in humility, the only beautiful posture, God does sometimes intervene: he grants us difficulties so that we may lean on Him, he shows us our mediocrity so that we may trust in Him, he forces on us the fact of our insignificance by simply being the wonder he is, so that we may always be grateful and thankful to Him. I am sure that in Oxford I would face difficulties; I am sure that in thinking and writing I am far from achieving anything much against the length of art and thought; I am entirely certain, that in the entire span of history, in the cosmic proportions of the universe, in the transcendental infinitude of eternity, my life is but a handbreadth, a blip; and most of all, I am utterly convinced that save from the continual presence of His grace, I cannot by myself finish this race, I cannot by myself reach paradise. Let me not be foolish and exalt myself:  my riches, my significance, my being, my very salvation, I owe it all to Him. 

Everything after all, that is not just the starting point of motion, but the very force which allows the motion to continue, comes from Him. Just as he could so sweepingly grant me the blessings, he too can so exactly remove them from me, at any point in time. And as Deuteronomy 8:18 puts it, “It is (the Lord) who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms His covenant”. The sustenance of these blessings is in itself an act of grace - why then should I ever be haughty, why then should I not turn back all praise to Him?

 

There need not be a deterministic continuity between blessings and pride. Indeed, if we were to see clearly at all, it should very much be the inverse of that. Nonetheless, for all that has been said, for us to even reach, grasp, and hold on to humility, we need His grace and provision. A contrived and ascetic attempt to usher it into our hearts like some fabricated emotion will not do – such humility quickly becomes distasteful and pungent. No, humility must be received like grace: with thanksgiving and joy, each and every day. With not merely a bended knee, but a leaping heart; with not merely a leaping heart, but a lifted gaze; not merely a lifted gaze, but a childlike awe; not merely a childlike awe, but a total glorification and ecstasy in grace. For though people usually think of humility as something hazardous to the natural happiness of our heart, as though it were a lumpy pie that is hard to digest, nothing could be further from the truth. When we do finally swallow it, we shall find that it is not the bitter medicine we thought it to be, but rather, a liquid tasting like honey and gold and myrrh and aloe and all the wonderful things that can only be a boon to every inch of our delighting soul. For we wrongly perceive that our ego is our friend, and would go to great lengths to protect it. But when it does melt away in the light of this better and more heavenly substance, we shall realize that we have been fooled – it was all the while not friend but greatest foe. All the admirable, reckless ruggedness and all that flowing, pompous splendour it seemed to possess and which we exulted in was but an illusion. Its very core is not that of exaltation and liberation, but compacted cowardice and slavery - cowardice that halted our feet from embarking upon the path of truth and greater destiny; slavery that bound us to the opinions of men and chained us to bitterness, envy, embarrassment, affectedness and selfish ambition. Cowardice and slavery which, at their very worst, destroyed the poetry of life and made us dance an awkward, pathetic and lonely dance. Humility is a far lighter yoke than our ego, and should we bear it, we shall find that, for all its disguises, it is truly a pair of glorious wings that lifts our souls to play with the swallows, and dance with the whistling brooks, and sing with the startling stars, in perfect harmony. No longer shall we be hindered by futile ambitions that sputter and spur, no longer shall we order our lives by the opinions of men which are as wild as the waves, and no longer shall we imprison ourselves in the deadened charts of comparison that run to infinity like greedy algorithms. For when humility casts these old habits to the flames, that sudden brightness will dazzle us and in a moment, our shackles shall be broken, our feet shall meet the arching rainbow, the thrushes shall startle our hearts with a song, and all the laughing children, once hiding in the trees, shall come out and with us play.

 

I know that it is in such moments, where my soul is at complete ease, delighting fully and simply in its existence, for many sundry things which fleet so frequently across my mind are subdued and cast aside as unwanted loot. Even grand things of the future become displaced and lose all substantiality in the unfathomable infinitude of the moment. When such tremors do strike me, I am tempted indeed to stop and rest, to allow my entire being to soak in this ambience, throwing to the wind all heavy matters which I can only count as distractions. There is a sincere elevation I think, in such material abandonment, and a true exaltation of the good and the beautiful, when my mind is turned to such better thoughts. And it would be silly of me, not to treasure such moments as gifts and blessings from God.

 

But I think, that greater foolishness would be to herald such moments as the object of my sojourning on earth, forgetting that the ultimate fulfillment of these moments shall only be found when our task on earth is accomplished and we commit our spirits back into His hands and his heavenly tableland. For if we permit ourselves to thirst too much for this reverie, begging continually for its sweet release with great impatience, then we not only run the risk of losing sight of our commission, that very often adorns itself in simpler and less stirring cloaks, but also of losing the very truth of such reveries and the very joy of such exaltations. For the joy of such exaltations is the shudder we get upon catching behind the curtains something timeless and eternal, something so far removed from the hasty and dim shadows of our world, something that is at once so profound and so simple, so intangible and so unshakably real. And the truth of such reveries is that, they are signposts for us, that grant us a foretaste, and only a slight foretaste, of that innumerable richness and that complete fulfillment which we shall attain in heaven, after having run this race upon earth. These foretastes refresh us, encourage us, grant us wings like eagles, so that our strength becomes renewed. But to mistake a signpost for the destination, no matter how intricate its design, or golden its letterings may be; and a temporary bivouac for our eternal home, no matter how close it is to sweet smelling boscages and whistling brooks, would be a grievous mistake. For one, it is not possible to continue staring at a signpost without being harried on by the necessity of movement, or to live permanently in a temporary bivouac without noticing that the rain pelts down upon its fabric, and that the wind ravages its lining, winnowing it day by day. It is impossible to dwell ceaselessly in such moments of childlike Arcadia and rapturous transcendence on this earth – our hearts are prone to changing tunes, and daytime quickly ushers in the practicalities of daily life, wherein we must muster, not a disassociated enlightenment, but a very keen attachment to what needs to be done, and wherein we must stand firmly on courage and faith to see us through barren lands where no flowers are happily strewn, and no poetry is easily sung. Further, even if we could so remove ourselves from daily affairs, it would be unhealthy indeed to thrust ourselves singularly upon beauteous and eternal things, without considering that there are many who shall be lost in utter transience if we do not act to salvage them from such a fate. Think – crowds of consumers being held sway by deadened materialistic sensibilities; oceans of hungry faces searching not for poetry but for their very next meal; a sweeping graveyard of broken relationships waiting to be mended; a million upon a million souls waiting to be reached; all while we wrap and isolate ourselves in a celestial light, refusing to move out of it lest the crushing weight of reality shatters and dissipates it from beneath us. I doubt this is godly, and I doubt that such experiences, if not finally brought out into the grit of life, and the fury of battle, can be truly considered as joy, for it is at is base, selfish and self-protective. St. Paul did not find joy while he was sequestered in a cathedral, he found it rather, while he received his thirty nine lashings five times over, while he stood in danger of persecution, sword, famine, shipwreck, nakedness and death, while he moved out of the sanctity of the holy temples in Jerusalem into the barbaric and heathenish world of the gentiles.

 

But I am not saying that the celestial joy which the contemplative man experiences is worthless. Far from! For then what shall we make of St. Augustine, Brother Lawrence, and countless other mystics, who through a life of solitude, have written such words that have called our souls back into truer life, and granted us wisdom that has led out feet to tread upon sweeter and more everlasting pathways? And indeed, it is in such moments where the soul is truly alive and aware that the majesty and beauty of God is more than a mere cognitive affair, and that the kingdom of heaven is singing within us and helping us to fix our eyes on things unseen. It is through them that we are also reminded of our soul’s longing to return home, wherein beauty and truth shall be made complete. Without them, we may very well forget that earth is but a temporary dwelling place, and mistake the satisfaction we receive from our service to Him as the immortal prize which he has promised to bestow on us, thus forsaking an eternal and wondrous glory for a transient contentment that errs towards pride. Without them, all our strivings would be in vain too, for what is suffering without joy and perseverance without hope?

 

Just as it is senseless for us as Christians to sequester ourselves in a poetic delight of His beauty, without seeking to also make His love known, so too is it senseless that we rally all our courage and determination to go forth into the world and rescue those who are perishing, without offering to them and pointing them towards that sweeter hope and resurrection, which makes life beautiful and worthwhile. Jesus said, “what good is it if a man gains the whole world but loses His soul?” – so too we must say, “what good is it if I claim such lands for His kingdom, free a billion from oppression, raise such anthems of resounding action, but fail to understand His love and beauty, be it found in the inimitable unfurling of the rose, in the quiet slant of the moonlight or in the utter stillness of my heart?”

 

The heavenly mandate is to know Him and to make Him known – we cannot divorce the two. At times I wonder if I should not devote my life to that artistic calling, wherein through words and film, I remind people and myself of the beauty of life, and the eternal truth of things unseen. At other times I think that I should rather employ my giftedness in economics to serve, in whatever way he allows me to, the very real needs of the poor and oppressed, even though it leads to a slight ossification of my poetic sensibilities. At times I think, why not both? With his help, nothing is impossible. In fact, I trust that so long as I wait on Him, and continue to seek His face, no matter how economic and practical the work I am doing, I shall still find all the poetry, strength and joy I need in Him.

 

The important thing is to make Him known in all that we do, through the overflowing of His spirit in us, at every minute of our lives. And for this, we need to wait on Him, to experience afresh each day His love and beauty, and to be so transfixed upon things unseen, counting all our sufferings as mere momentary afflictions, and all our achievements, as but brittle steppingstones, unworthy of comparison to that eternal glory He has prepared for us. The rose arbours he has graciously provided for us along this long and trying road are of great value - and while it is good, indeed even necessary, to rest and refresh ourselves in them, we must never make any of them our final stop; we must always keep in mind the far more glorious destination which we have been called to, taking the smell of these earthly roses into our hearts, not as treasures which we covet for in themselves, but as reminders of that land we are to reach, not too faraway, wherein the very morning star shall arise in our hearts, and the very hidden manna dance before our eyes, and the very river of life flow long and wide, cloaked with the song of dazzling butterflies, and decked in a brilliant array of His unceasing and illimitable light.   

Written on my notebook after watching Il Postino (again): "words and film. the movement of beauty, as ashes floating like origins in water, as reeds trembling in the wind. all around the dancing image - an awkward harmony. this i have found, is what calls to me like an orphic dream, more so than all human contrivances." I would be lying if I deny that Neruda stirs my soul. He had an almost touching faith in the simple existence of things as they merely are. Hence those beautiful odes to the sea, the eyes, the book, Matilde; but never the heavenly home, never that better dwelling. In that he did not believe. Beauty without God, a possible combination? Digging out a past entry from my diary, wherein I actually entertained and tested that thought, I know surely that it is not.

On December 24 last year I wrote:

"I now know that all beauty comes from you alone; that when the poets were breathing, they were breathing in you. In your light, the darkness is illuminated, in your perfect being, the fragments are made whole – to love the sea, we must first love you. to love the brokenness, we must know that your hand is holding us still.
Albert Camus, when writing Summer in Algiers, tried to recreate worth and beauty in a universe he believed to be godless; but ultimately, I think he failed. Upon reading it, one does not sense a true elevation, only a rhetorical persuasion, an absurd romanticizing of the world that quickly turns dull and shallow. For in denying God, we are at odds in trying to sustain the existence of our souls, and once we involuntarily or voluntarily deflate the truth of our souls, we lose the worth of any aesthetic conception, for it can no longer be defended as a signpost to something eternal and transcendental; it can only be thought of as at best, a parochial and vain grapple for something beyond us, and at worst, a mere instinctual response and biological predeliction. There is more to be said I think, but for now, since it has grown late, I shall end with a poem instead, inspired by Psalms 137:4-6 wherein the poet declares that if he does not remember God's city, he is better off mute and dumb, for truly, no tune that is not mere noise can be sung without Him. 

Before this all Begins (Psalms 137:4-6)

 

Before this all begins,

Let the edelweiss ask,

Has there been a greater beloved,

Who in sorrow and mirth alike weeps forth the hidden dew

And unsheathes from the sepulcher a thousand bells of light,

Which on sonorous days have been my food and fast?

 

Before the grass makes merry with the sky,

Let the oaks of the forest muse,

Has there been a greater beloved,

Who lets loose four rivers with a heavenly flute

And summons the orchids to dance with the maidens

Upon the vines of my starry wood?

 

Before the carillons start to toll,

Let the silent spaces of cloud and loam

Devour each shadow, lay waste all time,

And running across all winds behold

That there is no greater beloved,

Than he who loved, and made love known.

 

So before the poet sails the orphic seas,

Let every tear of his wide eyes cry:

If I hunt the robin's secrets,

Savour the golden lime,

Fish for the laughing moonbeam,

And make all words sublime

Yet lose upon some craggy shore

Love (O speechless world within),

Then I am but a naked dream

And beauty, Gabriel, I cannot sing.

I find myself living in an age where Yeats’s words ring utterly true: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”. After centuries of epistemological exploration and “progressive thought”, it seems that the only elegant posture of a modern day intellectual is that of relativism, subjectivism, skepticism – anything but a belief in the possibility of an absolute truth that can be grasped. In this essay, I shall be writing on how my search for truth, after acquiring some philosophical shocks, regained a firm epistemological footing through the notion of coherentism as a method of justification. More broadly, this could be read as my personal model for the construction of knowledge, which is not inimical to the concept of faith, and which I have found useful to one who believes, that with sufficient humility and virtue, a dividing line can still be drawn between fact and fancy.

 

Prior to explaining my position of coherentism and the complications I met, I must first speak of what led me to it and explain my avowed faith in its capacity to broaden my mind. I have always been convinced that one should align oneself to the standard of truth. However, I have met many around me who, truly believing that they are epistemologically justified in despairing of any search for truth, go on to live according to the dictates of their fancies (which, I must add, are not necessarily lacking in virtue). Any attempt to discuss the question of truth is met with a convenient appeal to our human finitude and the benefits of relativism; after which, the matter lies as dead and as stagnant as ever. These many frustrating encounters have convinced me that it is the man, who claims to be liberal in his acceptance of all views, and his advocacy of none, who is the dogmatic and unprogressive one. One who holds a certain hypothesis, and then readily goes out into the world of facts to test it rigorously, without partiality or prejudice, has a far broader mindset, and a far greater capacity for intellectual growth, than one who, adopting the modernist stand of sham humility, thinks that no conclusion can be found and thus rejects all hypotheses, or contradictorily accepts all without further inquiry.

 

The challenge to me then was to put forward a convincing statement that truth could still be honestly sought for, and in so doing, I first needed, not an account of what truth was, but rather, a convincing model which showed how we could at least try to reach a set of reasonably justified beliefs. Epistemologically, the main problem that surfaces in the justification of beliefs is the problem of infinite regress, to which there were three main responses: infinitism, foundationalism and coherentism. The first response did not seem viable to me because, taken apart from its abstract defenses, it simply meant that there was no adequate justification to hold the structure of knowledge up and prevent it from extending far beyond the reach of logicality. The second response was even more thorny – no indubitable axiom had been established as an archimedian point. What was left then for me was the third model of coherentism.

 

To elaborate briefly, coherentism takes a holistic form of justification. A belief is justified not because it is part of some inferential chain of reasoning, but because it coheres with the complete system of beliefs that the person holds. Of course, as with any other theory, it has its criticisms, the main one being that it is extremely possible that there may exist two or more web of beliefs which are internally consistent but entirely discordant from each other. A subsidiary attack would be that this model of knowledge construction lends no immediate certainty – the very core premises which buttress the system could very well be fallen ones. To throw an example, our belief that our senses are mostly reliable to give us facts about our external world falls prey to the possibility that we are mere brains in vats. The following will be a brief account on how I have introduced certain modifications which aim to circumvent these criticisms practically.

 

The problem of multiple coherent systems can be mitigated by introducing the additional condition of comprehensiveness. Indeed, it is easy to imagine many different systems of beliefs which are narrow and consistent; but to imagine the same number of systems which are both consistent and breathtakingly broad would be a much harder task. The challenge then, for any coherentist, is to continually seek to strengthen her worldview by trying to weave into the same fabric an ever increasing number of facts. If the worldview is misplaced, an honest reckoning with the facts will put internal pressure on the system. The coherentist will then have to find ways to accommodate the new data. If she fails, the worldview must be replaced.

 

The underlying principle in this method, I realized, is akin to the scientific method of hypothesis testing. Essentially, one can never be completely certain that the hypothesis (broadly interpreted in this case as an entire worldview) is right, for though the “experiment” may be carried out a thousand times over, there may always be contradictory evidence lurking in some corner. But, one can at least know if it is wrong, should contradictory evidence be found. In other words, in order to work towards truth, the method of falsification is key, but this implies the necessity of starting with a working hypothesis. We may not know if it is true when we first take hold of it, but we will never get anywhere if we don’t. The issue of faith then, applies to all beliefs, and it is the first and elemental step of all being – indeed, faith is the very courage to belief anything at all in the face of our human finitude. Without it, I do not think that we become more logical; on the contrary, I believe we simply stagnate and get nowhere. Also, the further implication of the scientific method is that our worldviews are strengthened when they are tested; this reminded me, that a true conviction in one’s beliefs would result, not in a timidity to hear opposing views, but in a great courage to face them.

Yet, one evident problem that arose in my conscious attempts to put this model into practice was the fact that evidence was prone to conceptual contamination. A materialist witnessing a man miraculously healed dismisses it as a mere oversight of the doctor in his first diagnosis of the patient. Similar arguments can be amassed for those on the other camp. However, it is my belief that while a few contradictory data may not be sufficient to put internal stress on the system, an entire constellation of them can, provided that the person is not fixedly partial and blind. Thus, with this said, there comes into the play the issue of virtue as well in this model of knowledge construction: one must be open-minded, preferring to face the facts, rather than offer himself the comfort of an old web of beliefs. Pride must be eradicated in favour of a genuine humility, which is the starting point of all growth.

 

Finally, I believe that the main problem with philosophers these days is that they merely seek for consistency within thought, and not also between thought and action. Action displays a true conviction, and without it, thought is but postulation. An ideal coherentist then, would bring his worldview beyond the clinical world of ideas, into the vigorous and intense reality of his everyday decisions, passions and emotions. For this reason, I deny, and am not bothered, by the wild suggestions of the global skeptic, for all his actions convince me that he is as much concerned over his immediate affairs as I am. For this reason too, I am much puzzled over aetheists who fear death, or Nietzschean overmans who cower or go insane. To me, Joan of Arc and St. Theresa – people who lived what they believed – were far less confused than many hailed philosophers.

 

Coherentism then, in the form elaborated upon, is a truly holistic approach towards truth that not only encourages intellectual progress, but also honesty, courage, and a desirable state of harmony between a person’s mind, soul and body. Indeed, through its lenses and its promise, we can honestly turn Yeat’ss pessimism into a renewed hope and say, with no shame, that it is the worst who lack all conviction, and the best who are are full of passionate intensity.

 

 

So many things are filled with the intent of sweeping us into the sides of our own existence; the world, though seemingly benign, hides beneath its glistening façade, a ferocious vortex whose pull grows stronger each day. And yet if we were only assaulted by these winds without, the journey may still be plausible. But no, even our very hearts have learnt to betray us; even our own minds are treating us like prey. Having tasted too much of the culture and climate of a lost tribe, we start heralding uncertainty as the only virtuous state of being; and having gotten too used to our exile in the desert, we start preferring the existence of shallow mirages to the land that flows with milk and honey. We, infinite beings of this world, are so tempted to sell our immensities; to trade our universe and its entire pastiche of glorious stars and foamy seas, for the tiny, the graspable, and the easily seen. And yet, when we are quiet enough, the stillness of our soul still speaks; and the clustering flowers, growing amidst the thick foliages, still release their sweet aroma, still remind us of those mountaintops, those everlasting springs, that we were meant to reach; and the fearful creatures on those distant blue shores still, with thundering voices, say to us: “To each life, one solitary journey; to each soul, one immortal prize; and to him that conquers, the tree of life”.

Do you long to understand the difficult? If so, you must travel inward into your own soul, and find that impossible task that has been commissioned to you, which your shadows, till the moment of your awakening, have been silently safeguarding. If you are to understand the difficult, your heart, not your eyes now, must learn the difference between darkness and light; must see the countries and the yawning skies, in their proper shades and their proper clime. Your being must deepen into that celestial space, where night is day, day is night and the world’s delight your soul’s despite. For the difficult is not found in hustling through the roaring crowd, it is not found even, in the bivouac of battles where the multitudes still throng and shout; no, the difficult is found when you take your soul into the darkened ravines, when you bring your solitary steps into that engulfing valley, that no men esteems, that no men would tread, because you see, what no other sees: at the end of the rainbow, a purple mountain, an endless sea.

 

And yet, do you not understand, that for one step through that land, we must summon a faith so large that even a thousand goliaths could not withstand. But do not now curse your frail body and feeble mind, do not disregard your faltering heart and weary eyes; rather, sing them, esteem them, bless them; for it is in their lack that you have been promised a greater abundance. Should we ever number our armies, should we ever trust our own strength, every stone would stumble us, every shadow would crush us. Through such a land as this, our own legs can never bear us - we need the wings of eagles, we need the songs of mountain birds, and we need the unspeakable power of the ancient rivers to forcefully possess us. If your own strength is sufficient, you are not strong, you are simply not walking upon this land. For lest a greater gravity of truth beset us, this impossible task will remain beyond us – we shall be flung, like mere sparrows in the confusion of the approaching thunder, out of our own existence. And this task, this land, is life; and life, unlike what the modern man tells us, is and always will be as lofty as the heavens, as burdensome as the secrets of old, and as delightful as the crashing waves, the spinning stars, the streaming trees: for though great difficulty is apportioned to us, greater joy is bestowed upon us; and all have been promised, babe and sage alike, that night shall always open up into a greater light. So let us always hold on to the difficult, let us always hold on to life.

When we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, we should not take it to simply mean that we should become passive receptacles for His work to be done. Neither does it mean that we only seek to consciously choose his ways at life’s crucial turning points. Rather it means that in every minute of every day, we must actively seek to accomplish his will and put it in the centre of our hearts. It means that in every minute of every day, God’s kingdom, of which Christ is the head, must be acutely alive within us and direct all our words, thoughts and deeds. To do His will, we must know his will, and John 17:3 states it clearly for us: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. His will for us is to know Him, that we may step foot into the heavenly city wherein springs of eternal joy and life flow. Sometimes, one may feel slightly deterred from such a calling because, when set against the pleasures and vast expanse of life, this singular goal seems so parochial and dull. Images of a pedantic monk huddling over his bible in the cold winter are tossed up against the vivid projections of carefree students running across the beach and catching the breeze with wild euphoria. It is easy to understand why most of us feel repelled against living life with that sole purpose. However, I do believe that our imaginations are capable of hyperbolic extremes, and actual reality is never so acutely antithetical as the scenarios conjured in our minds. Knowing God can be very pleasurable– gazing into the stars, reading poetry in the skies as they “pour forth speech”, having merriment with friends over a splendid meal in good faith, love and purity (for didn’t Jesus feast as well? Surely, one who comprehends the innumerable riches of God has greater reason to be merry, and greater depth in his joy!). Likewise, not knowing God can be very distasteful too – imagine the tediousness and boredom of the ubiquitous office worker who understands little beauty in life (for God is beauty), or the destructive anger and murderous jealousy of a couple who no longer know how to love each other (for God is love, how can we love better if we know not God?). Of course, I understand that such examples may err once more to extremes, and that reality is often never so clearly divided, but my point rests simply on the case that we cannot reliably rely on our instinctive imagination to tell us which path of life is worth pursuing, and which path is not.

 

In fact, if I should be speaking to the visceral hedonists of this age (most of us) who wish to taste of life in all directions, and drink of its well deeply with thirsty pores, I can perhaps have an even stronger case as to why we should practice the will of God. I think we should be myopic fools if we think that Christ, with all his power, love and glory; with all his eternal and heavenly dominions and ranks of angels, should come up in measurement to be less than the intrigues of this world. Oh no – for heaven is so great that hell is simply a crack in it. How can eternal life be less vast, less rich, less glorious and beautiful than a temporal life here on earth? I believe that just as in loving God, we love better, so too in knowing God, we know better – we can be better poets, better philosophers, better thinkers, for who knows all the truths of the world and far beyond but God himself, who will reveal, one day, all things to us? Sensuality, which the world proffers, is a much inferior substitute to the deep pangs of joy and truth that come from knowing Him; pangs which, rather than dissipating like a frothy illusion, linger and glow in ever increasing brightness and intensity. 

 

How then do we consciously seek to know God? I believe that for such a lofty task, our mere intellect will not do. No, we need something far more magical, far more true - we need the spirit of truth to reside in our entire being. So the first and most important step, I believe is to beseech the most High for this living spirit of truth to dwell within us: we must earnestly desire it, and when we do, God will surely be faithful, for it is said in scriptures: “seek and you will find, ask and it will be given, knock and the door shall be opened unto you”. Secondly, we must realize that God’s design and being is to be understood everywhere, in the bible, in nature, in our ponderings on love, humanly or heavenly, in reflections on our self. We can look inward at our own flaws and understand that we are sinful beings without Christ, just as we can be told so in God’s word. We can marvel at the glorious skies, or be charmed by the way of the swallows flight and know that nature reveals the splendor of God, or we could turn to the psalmist’s words to find out that that is so. But we can neither truthfully understand our sinfulness nor thoroughly appreciate beauty if first and foremost, the spirit of truth does not dwell within us like an overwhelming ocean that engulfs us and the world around us. And the spirit of truth must be received in the power and vindication of Christ’s death and resurrection – for without His sacrifice, how could we, jars of earthen clays, ever be worthy enough to receive such a treasure? A belief in Christ, his work on the cross, and his eternal reward to those who trust Him, is so essential as the starting point, that we should never be led, at any point in our endeavoring, to remove him from the equation. We should never arrive at the point where we say, all Gods are one and the same, God was never man, God never died for our sins, for then all our searching would be but in vain, for there can be no possibility of objective truth in our thoughts when we are guided by our humanly reasoning and not the infallible spirit of truth, and we would have really shot ourselves in the foot. Having clarified this, I go on to say that we should not simply seek to be contented with knowing God in one particular way and not another, and neither should we appraise one way at the expense of condemning another. We should not simply meditate on the beauty of nature, whilst forsaking the reading of the bible just as we should not exclaim that everything else besides God’s solid word is unimportant. For even scriptures say that God’s works are far greater than what is encapsulated in it – should we not then seek to understand it but also beyond it, to take in the full riches of Christ? Of course, the bible itself is so full that one may spend a lifetime on it and still not unearth all its treasures. But the point is that we must always be open to knowing God through various ways - we should never at any point in time shut our ears to his gentle whispers, whether they stream out from a field of cedar trees or a magical sea of words. Indeed, God is so full and inexhaustible that he should rightly be appreciated through countless facets and innumerable ways!

 

Finally, I started with asking “how do we consciously seek to know God”. Yet, I believe that this question only leads to half the truth, for as we discover our own thirst for the eternal, we realize that “in its essential soundness, the soul knows no effort toward God; the love of God is the quietly predominant bent of our nature.” When we know who we truly are, when we see beyond the mutated self the world has taught us to see, the man whose appetites loom larger than his quiet desire for truth, when we understand how we were made in the image of God with the faculties to grasp and create beauty, we find that knowing God and loving Him is the true desire of our hearts, and we soon find no deep joy in anything apart from Him. Wanting to know Him then becomes as natural as breathing is to us, and likewise, not knowing Him would be as terrible as suffocation.

 

The second part of God’s will is to make Him known, to become fishers of men, to bring others into eternal glory – for this is what Christ did for us; for this is what God, in His completely sacrificial love, wanted for us. Shouldn’t we then, in our pursuit of becoming like Christ, seek to do the same? God’s kingdom knows no bounds, in sharing it we become not less, but more; in keeping it to ourselves, we lose everything, or rather, realize that we never had it before. Our life’s goal should be towards this, for there is no greater calling – our vocations are merely stepping stones, that God guides us through, in order than those around us may see and know Him in us. Since we should seek to do His will in every minute of every day, we should also seek to make Him known in every minute of every day as well. This does not merely mean that we try to explain the doctrine of Christ once to all our acquaintances and friends (indeed, doing merely this can have rather negative effects). Rather, it means that our lives should be a continual testimony to God’s holiness and glory – all our words, thoughts and deeds must make him known. God is love and to do His will means taking perpetual care to show his love and shine his light to those around us, be it through simple gestures or charitable works. And if anyone needs to understand the conduct of love, 1 Corinthians 13 is an invaluable resource. Never be proud, nor rude, nor envious; keep no record of wrongs, always hope, always trust, always have faith in others. How hard this is! But oh for God’s grace and mercy! Of the issue of loving I am a novice, but God has promised to be with us and to help us, so let me not bother about the shackles that weigh me down, but let me rather fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith. O Lord, may your Love teach me to love.

 

Finally, let me bring this abstract treatise to a more corporeal and personal level, so that I may remember how exposition should clarify action, and how what we say, should become what we do. Last night I was playing Civilization II for five hours on end (I was inspired to do so whilst reading Rosseau’s social contract; do not ask me why, I only think it is because Sid Meyer’s creation involved some very vague deliberation on politics and government; of course time with Rousseau was far more productive than time with the game, for I was a lousy player and my democratic governments were continually collapsing in an unending series of civil revolts) – few would consider it a sin, but there was a certain residual discomfort and guilt within me. Today, I woke up and decided to delete it off from my computer (something I have done many times, to other games, before). But now I have an even stronger conviction as to why this was the right thing to do, and why, I should never ever fall into the same cycle, be it with games, or with people, or with any other distractions. It is not simply about being more productive, about developing my potential for worldly gain (as was sometimes the motivation in the past, especially in the midst of examinations). It is about asking whether, at every minute and at every second, I am purposing in my heart to know nothing but God and to make known nothing but Him and his glory. Of course, it is hard – as I was writing this, I was sidetracked by my facebook account for quite a while, in which nothing productive was really done, in which my attention switched to the outward, not the inward (for how inward can facebook get? The name itself already suggests that it is not much more than something superficial. Of course, it can be used for good as well – even the most economic activity can be done in a Godly way - but I was really being nothing more than a voyeur). But I will try, and purpose and do. Each day He will help me to become who I am meant to be, he will lift me up as I wait on Him, and help me soar with eagle’s wings. And he will help all of us to run this race and win the prize, as long as we pray with true sincerity and earnestness, at every minute of every day, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In light were all things that now have their being formed. While the air was still an endless silence, and the world barely a dream, light weaved its way amongst the immaterial spirits, threaded itself along the suspect lines of emptiness, and like an approaching tide, washed, seeped, and illumined what was not. Of light, were purity, goodness, faith, truth, love and all nobler elements, born. For light was the first miracle, and all others, merely, but no less beautifully, the exquisite vestiges of it. The principality of light is also, as such – it may make its incursion into darkness, but darkness can never cast itself upon it. Take a little candle, set it alight, and not even an endless blanket of blackness may extinguish its glow. Though darkness pervades, light conquers.

 

If I had only one wish for this solitary sojourning on earth, this garnering of a fleeting breath, this flicker of motion, this gasp between a parenthesis of nothingness, this life of mine, it would be for it to be, in its own special way, a monument to what came as the first miracle, and remains as the indissoluble – light, pure, pure light. For all constellations, be they on heaven or on earth, have their substance, their entire gravity, composed of such a wondrous infinitude, and would not the highest, the most ultimate task, be the attainment of such an immeasurability within our souls? An immeasurability so great that the very breath we exhale would fill the empty spaces with a boundless song; a song that finds its place in the whisper of the trees, the rolling of the clouds, the silent happiness of butterflies, and the light of all things pure.

 

But how are we, children of Adam, born of carnal seed, knotted in evil weeds, to find such mercy in our souls, to give such life to the silent world? It is an impossible task for our own beings have nothing courageous about them, within the depths of our flesh all finer elements fade, and we shrink into sullen balls of compact darkness, rolling and spreading like an inexorable contagion. Such pessimism you say! But nay, it is true – for as long as we confine ourselves to the material and the observable, we are trapped in a spherical grave of darkness, being nothing more than a riddle of water and bones, an utterly ignoble race, an ignorant and arrogant tribe, too blind to know that we’re blind.

 

Yet, it is for this reason that light can be as uncontaminated as it is, for it was not engendered of this same seed of ours, (for light and darkness cannot spring forth from the same grounds), but arrived instead, as sunbeam does, bursting and shining through the darkened clouds. It came from another world, one untouched by man, and it came to live amongst us, so that we, having felt the warmth of it upon our skin, having tasted it, having swallowed, having let it fill us up to the very core and depths of our souls, could say, that we were redeemed. For we did not choose the light, rather, it chose us – it passed like a spirited voice upon us, called us out from the dank pits of our existence, and lifted us to a realm that man had never seen before – a realm beyond the skies, a realm too wondrous for any fantasy to construe; a realm of stars, angels, trees, water, love and truth. And there we found a city, whose foundations were not of stones, bricks or mortar, and there we found a city, whose foundations were of light. Oh, the kindness of light, that gently lifted our eyelids and brought us back from a world so false! - may it be exalted and loved for generations upon generations.

 

Now then we let our hearts sing, with tremulous joy, for we have transcended beyond the material, to the liminal, beyond the liminal, to the unimaginable and from the unimaginable, to the unshakably real. We have discovered the goodness of light. We see it, we touch it, we taste it, we eat it, and it fills us up, and it makes us new. And one day,

 

 

So may the light shine through. Amen.