Edge of a precipice

Quote I had not read in some time, which was e-mailed to me today - from C. S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory:

“I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with "normal life." Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. Periclean Athens leaves us not only the Parthenon but, significantly, the Funeral Oration. The insects have "chosen" a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache: it is our nature. . . ."

I should like to write perhaps two paragraphs of the quality of Jack's before I die... unlikely, but one may hope. I studied his works intensely in my day - and he was such an intriguing personality as well as an exceedingly insightful writer.

I often have been irritated with myself, knowing how a desire for security kept me from being adventurous. I wonder if what troubles the believer most in this life is knowing that everything is always uncertain - we have no control over many events in this life.

I was speaking, earlier this week, of my dabbling in excessive charismatic pursuits and some of what today would be termed "New Age" in my young adult years. Another group with which I was acquainted - mostly priests and young religious - became very involved with Silva Mind Control. I was never as 'into it' as some of the others, but some of the ideas were dangerous, as I can see with hindsight.

Certainly, some of the Silva method, such as rejecting negative thoughts, can be valuable. How little we really do know of the mind - and I have no doubt that it can effect us physically as well. Focussing, cultivating the memory, discipline of thoughts (though, for my money at this point, I'll take John Cassian...), all are valuable. Yet there was another side - appealing, exciting, and, if I recall correctly, based on that we use only a certain, small percentage of our brain power normally. (It did not occur to me or any of the others to question whether it was possible to harness the rest of the mass and develop a super-brain. None of us were scientists, but all were intellectual sorts... Lord have mercy, if I could have ten time the brain power... what I could accomplish. But I digress.)

In the Mind Control training (as I noted, I had less than the others - today, I am grateful), there were several techniques which were supposedly able to counteract illness. Cancerous cells could be wiped out by the proper brain usage, in this presentation. I loved this prospect... until one of the lovely young priests who taught Mind Control was dead, of cancer, before he was 40. I am not about to discount mind-body connexions beyond anything of which we may be aware. Yet I believe I was not the only one who was somewhat shattered at realising that even those most trained in the method were not immune to agony.

One exercise in which I never participated (and never would) involved 'putting on another's head' and exploring what thoughts the other had. I have no notion of whether the impressions one receives are the others' true thoughts - and am more inclined to think that one can mistake one's intuitive sense for such 'insights.' If it were possible, I would think it totally invasive of another's privacy and highly dangerous. Yet if, as I suspect, it was not, how much more dangerous to believe we can see inside of another's mind.

None of the people I knew had anything but kind, loving motives. Those who wanted to see inside another's mind, or know the other's problems, believed that their own thoughts could, for example, wipe out another's disease, or that they could be available to others by knowing their needs. Satan is always that angel of light (and, when I say "Satan" here, I am not suggesting that anyone there was wicked! I mean the Accuser, the Tempter - the one who cleverly deceives. In fact, I think that I am talking more of the distractions of our own minds than of any wicked spirit in this context.)

I had another e-mail today, from my spiritual 'Abba,' who is poles from the sort of romantic, dryad and faun imagery that tends to keep me chasing after charms. He is a very blunt sort (...essential in a spiritual director... though I must admit that I sometimes wish I could have a little 'stroking'... which of course would not do the job...), and reminded me to stop with the interior monologues in order to be open to the dialogue with God that is the essence of my life of prayer. He reminded me of what he termed the 'Virtue of Surrender.'

Not terribly romantic - but it is Truth. Those of us who wish to have control we cannot have (and here I am not referring to the twisted use of power by the wicked, but the fairyland excursions of prayerful lovers who are afraid) ultimately must rest in the divine Heart. I have been most fortunate in having someone to help me 'see straight' - maybe, now at around the half century mark, there is hope for me. (If I take after my father's family, when I am 80 or so my heart will stop. If I take after my mother's, I'll be 104, wishing it would stop... so I should have some time ahead.)

It will never be easy for one like myself - I wonder if it ever will be accomplished. C. S. Lewis knew that struggle. He was multi-dimensional in his own personality - the sober and rational man who spoke, with seemingly great detachment, of suffering (until he faced intense suffering of his own) - the writer who could present 'mere Christianity' and the insights of Screwtape - but also one who wished to fall through a wardrobe and end up in Narnia.