I went on a walk today with a friend. We walked into the woods and talked. It was nice. Nice because the woods were beautiful, serene and so alive. Nice also because the conversation was comfortable, intimate and also alive. Life seemed to flow between the life all around us, and the language between us which was an attempt to make sense of the life all around us. The language and life converged. Sometimes I was walking, watching and being (in). At others, I was speaking, listening, and imagining. The moments seem to go back and forth without notice and I never really knew where I was.
We walked, talking, listening, watching . . . I saw heaven, only briefly. I felt it in the world around me. I listened to it--not in words, but in reverberations and echoes of trust and care. Then, I saw it over the ridge at the opening of a clearing--more green, more life than my senses could bear. We sat--at that moment silent--grateful.
The sun had almost left us at this point; inspired, we walked on a bit further. We came to an opening--a long, wide gravel road which seemed imperial, eerie and beckoning all at the same time. Still silent, we went forth. We walked, wondering. We didn't speak, wondering. We came to the end and entered that graveyard. We saw memorials, signs and etches of lives lived--lives lived in the place we saw heaven that day. We heard the quiet--but this time not of life, but of death all around us. We were still silent. It is one of the most sacred and most terrifying places I have ever been--hidden back in the woods, amidst a clearing. At the end of a long road, wide, and narrow--opens a semi-circle with graves around it, and a large memorial at the head. No fountains. No pavement. Nothing but rememberance and death.
Then I realized that I had been duped again. I realized how naive I let myself become. I realized that the heaven I saw that day--and others--was truly human. Why? Because it was temporary--of course. But, also because it ended here--in this place of death. Not only in a passing-away, but in terror, in degradation, in war. I realized that this is where all human heavens have ended thus far--in belief, hope and enjoyment, then humiliation, suffering and war. Strange? more than that:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh
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