Month: November 2024

If we only knew to how great an extent this inner persuasion colors our decisions, our will for, and toward others in matters of sought control, we might gladly relinquish the helm.

Of course, it would take no less than what is commonly called a miracle. To see our assumed objectivity about ourselves as fit judges is the greatest presumption we inherit in these skins.

And God forbid (if one can receive it) I express any resistance to, or negativity toward any man who might throw up his hands and say “In this we are all in the same boat and all utterly hopeless and helpless against it.” It is impossible for man to surrender his deepest metrics by which he measures all. He is himself to himself, the sole place he is granted to stand and survey.

And love, for us, is only at best an exercise of invitation from what we endure as what is to us our deepest level. A “bringing in” to ourselves and to that deepest level we know, or claim to, of another.

And too rare might be the person who does not know something of that door “swinging both ways”, for always from above looking down, or from beneath undergirding, sits that judge who alone occupies truly deepest level. The “me” to whom all is happening in any recognition of what it believes is happening. In one sense, as some might see, we are forever in matters of marriage and divorce with the me as adjudicator…sometimes justice of the peace, sometimes warrior king or bouncer.

And we love/hate the me above all. It is what strives for exclusive and all powerful maintenance of self as exclusive and necessary to the true knowing of itself, while all the while no less engaged against the terrors of isolation. For it only knows itself as against a back drop of what it calls other. “Well, you are not me!” is nothing too unimaginably foreign to even the longest wed. That door is always being maintained whether only in thought or further, in words expressed.

But this is not strange to any, is it? There’s no claim of being anything but captain obvious, reciting the most trite observations.

To further reduce we long for both father and mother while likewise despising father and mother. Mother sitting in the gallery as only one with tears for us while we stand in the docket. But we may see, no less, with some recognition it has been that unqualified approval that has brought us to stand as defendant. The restrictions of father who knows all children must eventually face the world equipped with some responsibility is alternately hated, but also with some ruing of neglecting the steeling he had hoped, and perhaps was called for, to infuse.

We are products.

When in the lead of the parade we are self made. When before the bailiff approaching with cuffs, we cry product.

And this thing, in all instability and subject to all circumstance in dependence for the knowing of itself we often think

“And I turned out OK”.

How can a man…can a man…be free of all influences that were themselves subject to all influence?

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple?

Ya ever wonder what kind of circumstances a man saying that is leaving the door open to?
Will he be moved? Close the door?

“You have missed only one important step,” said the man.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” said the other, adding, “and besides I think I have presented everything in a quite clearly supported argument of reason.”

“May I ask, supported by what?” came the reply.

“Well, first of all,” he said, hoping his response would not betray his irritation at being so questioned, “supported by all the literature and by the opinions and conclusions of almost all others of the field.”

He really hoped this would be the end of the matter, for as far as he could see, and to a man all others expressed their approvals, but only this one man dare have the temerity to both first correct and then question him.

“No doubt” he thought to himself, “this man is being merely contrarian for the sake of it, a one wanting to stand out from others who has picked me as his target,” were the words unspoken. With a hefty sauce of jealousy flavoring all other ingredients.

He had dealt with many others of this ilk, always with endless questions that to him lead nowhere…and are only fabricated as provocation to frustration. Looking for that ubiquitous and much sought after “gotcha moment”.

But, the other man appeared to have no indication of being turned or stepping away, and so the man steeled himself in preparation to remain calm and apparently reasonable. At least while the onlookers yet milled about as witnesses.

For this he was summoning the greatest of his self control as direst labor to appear kind, but not saccharine, saying, “And I hope this puts your mind at ease with my conclusions.”

“Oh” said the other, “I can say nothing of your conclusions nor how they may be affected in the neglect of that one step” adding “What you conclude may mean something but little; but how you conclude is to me, at least, all that matters”.

He went on “I am far more interested in the how of how you do your work than any product of it.”

Saying also “I do not disregard there are effects of conclusions shared, only that without some attention to sharing the work necessary to their right concluding, one has really instructed in nothing.”

This was said evenly and without any accusation. But that did not matter much to the hearer; less in fact, in light of how his boiler was now being fed, and to almost bursting point. But, there were still a few stragglers milling about on the steps outside the doors.

And so he summoned all to contain himself, even though he felt himself slipping into a realm beyond his control. He frantically sought relief and key as to what precipitated this most unwelcome exchange. And that if, finding key, finding first reason of its precipitation he might finally, and expertly lock it up…and so he, in frenetic thought, scrambled to finally throw this man the meat he was after, and be done with it.

But, “what was it? What was it?”

“The literature is clear” he thought to himself. “My reasoning no less sound, and even exquisite” he held in deepest recesses. “My presentation was unhurried and comprehensive of the material I sought to convey, even graspable by a 10 year old” his thoughts raced. All seen within in milliseconds. But somehow he knew, somehow he knew, especially amongst witnesses, that he dare not treat this other as a 10 year old.

A clearly patronizing approach, though tempting, is too easily turned by clever men such as these.

And he had learned egg on his face is not a good look on him, especially where others might see. He was grinding through his cerebral gears trying to get ahead and finally shut down this opposition.

Ahhh! Eureka! It came to him in a flash. A blinding flash in promise of relief…as lightning precedes a deluge coming to comfort parched fields. The tables could be turned to a different tack by his own asking of question also and instead; rather than be the one provoked by their probing. Yes, he had the power to also ask, and probe. Yes! He would ask! He would ask.

And so this fury of heat and blinding light upon him would be…turned…and turned toward that present other. And so he quickly composed himself.

“May I ask about anything I have said that you find incomplete in step or process that causes you now to question?” He wasn’t even sure if this humbling expressed in question and request was real or not. All he knew is he had to assume that position, for better or worse as supplicant, for the merest relief of that sensing his head about to explode.

“Yes, you may” said the man., “And I am happy you asked.”

He went on “Your conclusion that all you believe established in your presentation and reasoning was to one end.”

Yes”, yes” the man responded. He felt more comfortable now for he was absolutely certain that conclusion most sound of all and without any place of contradiction. He felt back again “on his own turf” and at ease enough to ask another question.

“To clear the air, may I ask what you believe was that final conclusion? So that we may see if we are on the same page or that if any fault of communicating is attributable to me, or perhaps, if you are able, accept that you may not have heard me correctly?”

The man almost stunned himself by his allowances and hearing the words coming out of him. He was not used to engaging on this level at all. In entertaining possibilities new to himself for the sake of relief he sensed the gauge on his boiler returning to safe operating range. And he was not at all concerned as to whether he had maneuvered himself there or was brought to it…for now it was enough to feel the heat leaving himself.

That there was a change he was sure, and was relishing it. He no longer feared an embarrassing explosion. And when the other responded he could barely keep himself from blubbering. And the other did respond.

“I believe your conclusion is, and was, that all is to the end of relationship, and that particularly neither legal nor contractual exchange…even if such may have had once appearance of beginning so”. “And” he added “that all is in service to this end regardless of how little, even at any time, or even in any circumstance, things may appear otherwise” “And” continuing “I believe I heard you say ‘Relationship is all’…unless I misremember”.

This is now where the man fairly blubbered as aforementioned. “No, no, no,” he exclaimed being now overcome by an ebullience strange to himself “No, you neither misheard nor misremember, that is precisely the point” and for whatever reason not saying “my point”.

Yet he was aware he hadn’t. He felt oddly relieved of trying to own anything in these moments. He went on to say “No, you got it, you got it! In fact I would say by your summary of my 30 minutes you as well, if not better, grasp all I was aiming at in trying”. This ebullience was causing him to both say and think in ways totally new to himself…even to some giving away of a betterness.

And though he did not know how this could be…yet somehow he sensed were it too overexamined he might lose the joy of the moment. This experience was simply too new and delicious to yet be parsed or stuck as a bug for dissecting…someone…even this man “knew” and “got” all he was striving to say. He couldn’t help himself here…here was where he wanted to stay. He dare not even ask why in its consummation and consumption of all else.

And he could not take his eyes off the beaming smile coming at him now…from that “other” even in this overwhelming and almost embarrassing joy. Though this thought did cross his mind, most fleetingly. Are we mimicking one another? Or, am I only mimicking him? Reflecting to each other as from one another? In all this he felt both lost and found…at once. Lost to knowing, yet in-dissuadable of how right this present moment is to himself. It was newer than new could describe.

In such lostness his next question was laughable to himself, expressed in laughter, subsumed in it beyond caring of how it might cause him to appear.

Here any question of true humility or any feigning just wasn’t there for the considering…he was not trying now to relieve himself to a more comfortable containment or appearance…for whatever reason he felt safer than ever to appear as supplicant…simply because, as something quite new to himself…he really wanted to know. He couldn’t help but ask. Nor did he have any desire to help himself at all that might restrain.

Ad so he did…ask. He asked with tears running down his face even beholding tears of joy on that other face.

“What one important step was I missing?” “You know, the one you mentioned when we first met, can you tell me? Do you think I might be able to get it as you have apparently gotten me?”

Some sobriety had entered, but not as displacing joy, but actually accruing from it. The man really wanted to know.

“Oh”, said the other “I think you got it.” “Yes it’s really there to be gotten…and you got it” This “other” man was also careful to not make ownership of this thing exclusive to himself…it was too obviously up for the sharing.

And as he turned to go his way he was met by an almost begging…”Please, please, might you be a little more plain, at least for my sake of what you at least once thought I’d missed but seem to now appear to have?” “Please?, I really do not know”

This posture tore at the man leaving such that he could not deny.

He stopped his turning and looked squarely into a face he could not help but love in its need. Likewise the other was looking into a face of such need to express what he himself had asked for, it was almost too painful.

Yet he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, look away. Had he pressed this man too much? Asked too much of this one with whom he had just shared unspeakable moments of joy? “Am I seeking to take advantage” he wondered briefly…yet he knew he did not know…and had to. “Please?” he said/asked…one more time.

“The step of relationship cannot exclude the acceptance of all you do not know of that other. You can surely include all you might think you know, but there must be that allowance for all you do not know, otherwise one has only entered their own imagination of the other.” Adding “One is real, one is not, and vain”.

“That allowance and acceptance is the only thing that ensures it is relationship…and not something not…otherwise it is all and only an until.”

He wanted to ask more but now the man was on his way. He was not sure of all it meant, but somehow the perfect sense of it didn’t escape him. He understood vaguely that the “all he may not know” of another could be deeper than the deepest sea, especially in regard to the one he once, and just recently opined about from a pulpit. From the same pulpit he declared Him eternal and infinite in being, yet now, to himself he sounded such a fool.

Nothing now seemed more plain to him of the vastness of all he did not know, and he was at a complete loss to himself of how a man might even begin to consider the all he did not know of another…in not knowing it. How deep might another be? Could he tell? And even more importantly…had he been telling to some sum of a thing that is now plainly vain?

Yet…now he found something oddly comforting in being so undone. And also even now some words rung in his ears as great comfort “You can surely include all you might think you know”. No prohibition there…as long as the unknown is not prohibited nor un- left fully open to, and in, disclosure.

O! But it now struck the man again as lightning. (How many lightning strikes is he set to endure?) “I have been talking about all I do not know while feigning at it”. And thoughts followed “What is this thing I have labelled relationship, but know so little of?” And,no less and also came “how could I ever have been angry at that guy? But I know I was.”

He felt compelled to holler after the diminishing figure, “Hey, I have to admit there was some anger…and I’m now convinced all the misunderstanding was on my end”. Was he letting himself off the hook with word of “some”? He thought.

“Think nothing of it brother” came the unforced response from the retreating walker.

“Oh,” the man thought to himself, “this may even be harder than that fellow knows in his saying to not think of myself as I know I surely once most recently was” Came further thoughts of “But he really appears quite unbothered by it, as though forgotten already and besides, I really didn’t know what I was doing”.

Or what he was doing.