The Wild Tears Fall

For the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead, because of sin; but the spirit liveth, because of justification. (Romans VIII:6-10)


I woke this morning to find a lovely gift in my inbox. It was a Russian folk song about death, sung in the worn voice--all the more poignant for its quavering tones--of an old woman. The words were very simple, as such words should be on so universal a thing as the end of life. It echoed the sentiments of Tolstoy in his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in which a man dying of terminal illness is tormented most by his family and friends in their refusal to accept the fact that he is dying, nay, that he is even ill! 

It is because they perceive death in such a terrified manner that they try to spare themselves of its horror by refusing to see it in Ilyich, clinging to the health of their bodies and refusing to contemplate the failure of his flesh. Only the stocky, healthy peasant boy, Gerasim, offers the man any comfort. He does so through physical assistance, and by speaking frankly to him of his condition. 'You're a sick man. Why shouldn't I help you?' When Ivan does at last die, one of the many acquaintances that failed to console the man makes the typical, Western, post-Christian observation to Gerasim:


'Well, friend Gerasim,' said Peter Ivanovich, so as to say something. 'It's a sad affair, isn't it?'
'It's God's will. We shall all come to it some day,' said Gerasim. (The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Chapter I)


So we shall. 

Father Walter Ciszek, as he first repined in prisonment and then laboured in the Lubyanka prison, came to the conclusion that the flesh, after our soul quitted it, would in fact--not as a trite, pious euphemism--receive a well deserved rest until the day of the General Resurrection. For he came to love his body, as he discovered its magnificent power of endurance, to hold together, not as the 'glorified body of the athlete' but as his own simple flesh, persevering under comfortless, impossible conditions. As he observes this in his work, He Leadeth Me, he also remarks what a shame it is the way most Churchmen (orthodox ones) so immediately dismiss the body as a dumb brute that deserves nothing more than a good beating to keep it in line. Even the simple Russian song, which I am enjoying at this moment has to cast such a light on the flesh:


They will raise the sinful body and carry it to the church....


Poor body! As if it ever had any volition of its own! As if my hand ever of its own accord wrestled with a sister, or my tongue articulated an unkind word without the prompting of my mind, or my eyes ever rolled back in their sockets because of an involuntary instinct.


Yet, very often has my saucy spirit lectured it: 'I am willing, but you are weak. If you never ached, I would never be irascible! All your stupid hungers, desires, and needs! If I did not have to take care of you, look after you, I would be like unto an angel, and you hold me back with your rebellious corruptibility!'


Ungrateful soul! How would you even exist without this material form? You weren't before your body was, and you will not be whole after death until reunited with your poor flesh. Father Malachy summed up the absolute necessity of the flesh for man's being quite well when explaining the subsistence of angels to Bernard Janzen:


'How do we know there are two people in this room? We count two bodies. Angels do not have bodies. How then do we individuate angels? By their functions...'


In this fact, we see an instance where man is more fittingly made in the image of God than even the angelic choirs, and it has all to do with that corruptible mass of loosely bonded atoms. For as St. Thomas Aquinas observes:


We may speak of God's image in two ways. First, we may consider in it that in which the image chiefly consists, that is, the intellectual nature. Thus the image of God is more perfect in the angels than in man, because their intellectual nature is more perfect, as is clear from what has been said (58, 3; 79, 8).(Summa Theologica: Prima Pars, Question 93, Article III)


So when God said, 'Let Us make man to Our image', He referred to the intellectual aspect of man only in so far as man was above the beasts and elements just created. When compared with the angels's resemblance to the Divine though, man's likeness to God does not wane, for in one aspect it is even more vivid:


Secondly, we may consider the image of God in man as regards its accidental qualities, so far as to observe in man a certain imitation of God, consisting in the fact that man proceeds from man, as God from God; and also in the fact that the whole human soul is in the whole body, as God from God; and also in the fact that the whole human soul is in the whole body, and again, in every part, as God is in regard to the whole world. In these and the like things the image of God is more perfect in man than it is in the angels. (ibid.)


This subsistence in the flesh to be undertaken by God Himself is what some mystics (e.g. Venerable Mary of Agreda) say sealed Lucifer's rebellious course. He could not bear the fact of God in man--man who eats, sweats, defecates, and dies. He would not serve the God-man, and he would certainly not confess the superiority of the Virgin over any angel in creation, much less himself.


Furthermore, there is a blessed gift accorded to flesh that angels may never have. Saint Faustina wrote in her diary:


If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two things; one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering. (Diary, 1804)


Indeed, can the resignation of an angel hold a candle to that of Our Lady's? Can an angel claim as much credit for its unwavering focus on the Lord, when it has never had a stomach which growled for feeding nor knees that ached from being long in a prayerful posture? And can they ever receive Christ so intimately as we do in that neglected miracle offered at every Mass?


The flesh was created by God, so it is good. As Christ taught us, we are not to blame our spiritual baseness on the less noble aspect of our being:


And He saith to them: So are you also without knowledge? understand you not that every thing from without, entering into a man cannot defile him: Because it entereth not into his heart, but goeth into the belly, and goeth out into the privy, purging all meats? But he said that the things which come out from a man, they defile a man. For from within out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile a man. (Mark VII:18-23)


Why then have the holy Apostles, Fathers, and Doctors of the Church so often lashed the flesh in such unequivocal terms, often praising the spirit for no other reason that it is spiritual? What of all the heresies and blasphemies that have arisen due to hatred of the flesh and the undue exaltation of the soul? And since as Our Lord says that evil arises from man's spirit, why does the flesh shoulder so much blame?

There are at least two possibilities for these invectives against the body. The first is that the preachers of the Church were speaking so that the masses could understand them. If a man has struck another and he repents, he may irrationally hate the hand that did the deed. When one behaves like a glutton and repents, one is disgusted with one's bodily appetites and not the spirit that would not curb the flesh. Our bodies subject us constantly to urges to which our mind objects, so it is easy to overlook our volition's responsibility and blame that physical mass for what we have done. 

When a teacher addresses a class, he will at least begin by speaking in their language and employing terms they understand. If the class is too large or too thick, he will not press them beyond their abilities with fine distinctions. So if a Father of the Church sees that his flock associates their sins with their bodies, he will tell them, 'Stop listening to your body!' 

Since ordering the flesh is not a pleasant thing, he will not describe asceticism in such terms as perfecting the harmony of flesh and spirit, but with analogies of violent subjugation. The disciplined athlete may come to see his exercises as an act of properly loving his body, but a coach just beginning to whip his team into shape will speak on the necessity of pain and competition with one's fleshly self to achieve perfection.

The second reason: as it is subsistence in a body which makes an individual man to be himself, it is also the indispensable centre of his ego. Spiritual people too often forget this, picturing their soul as its own individual entity (whether they see it as a spark or a ghost). Yet, one's body forms one's unique self, and it is how one knows he is not the person sitting beside him on a bus or the child playing on the grass outside his window. If ever solipsism afflicted me in my youthful contemplations, I escaped it not by thinking (Descartes's error), but by cradling myself with arms of flesh and bone while staring at two beams of wood crossed together, on which was mounted the metallic likeness of a crucified man.

Thus far there is no sin. However, attachment to one's self is hardly ever present in man at a moderate degree. We either love ourselves excessively, or we hate ourselves melodramatically. Only the saint stands a tip-toe on that slender thread of gossamer where he loves himself as a creature of God and is perfectly subordinated to the Creator. The infinite shades of sinful self-love or self-hate that lie on either side of that Golden Mean still boil down to one ugly fault: selfishness. Our souls were not, until knitted into our flesh, so that complex, simultaneous union makes the self. As matter itself is complex, it is even more natural for the self to identify more with its bodily aspect than its soul. This is rendered easier still by the material world surrounding us, so much so that when we speak of 'reality' we too often mean the laws of the material world, rather than absolutes which exist outside time and space.


If the flesh then is the means by which man turns away from Sum Qui Sum and into is qui non est, then the laws which his reason builds up from the flesh must be overturned, for their foundation is less than sand. Those hard grains do not corrupt and the body most certainly will.


For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. (Romans VIII:13)

A final reflection: having just completed the above citation, I stopped to blow into my hands. I have left the door to the balcony open all night, and the autumnal chill is nibbling at my fingers. I find the cold in the morning is good for this body. When it is inclined to indulge in the warmth of the bed, a quick swipe of the arm ripping off the blanket is more effective when the air is chill. Then this mortal flesh leaps off the mattress with hasty alacrity to prepare coffee and oatmeal. Alas, now it is cramped with sitting and pines for exercise. 

O dear body, whom I unduly love or despise in my fickle ways, may I bless you when you make me suffer, and may your variable needs teach my spirit moderation in all activities. Be a worthy ambassador between my soul and those of others; work with me to show my fellow man how I love him. Dear flesh, when you and I are parted, I hope you are not disturbed, but allowed to rest until that day when the trumpet blasts. My most earnest prayer is that I have entered God's benediction, and my soul and you will reunite in beatitude, as God had ordained before the Fall.

It's not the second of February yet! Undoubtedly the sound of Christmas carols still emanating from my room is occasionally perplexing my roommates, as is the chalk inscription on the door, but one's attachment to festive seasons--eespecially ecclesial ones--cannot be gainsaid. Today is a particularly bittersweet feastday with a vivid, raucous history of celebration worthy of the medieval epoch. It is that of the Flight in Egypt, also known as Festum Asinorum, the Feast of the Ass.

Man, when acting as himself, does have a great love for the animals that have borne him. Balaam's ass reproached him for beating her when she refused to proceed against an angered angel, and her argument was symphathetically recorded in Scripture. A creature whose very name is a term of derision when applied to the Homo Sapiens/Homo Necans/Homo Politicus has on occasion got a word in edgewise.

This event, amongst others, was celebrated in the Middle Ages as a play, inspired by the pseudo-Augustinian "Sermo contra judaeos, paganos, et Arianos de Symbolo," (a sermon which I burn to read, being an adjuration both to Jews and Gentiles--historial, philosophical, and prophetic). At the climax of the lively procession, the ass exchanged the wizard Balaam, who was marching to curse God's chosen people, for the virgin Mother of God, who was flying into Egypt to save her Son. All fittingly culminated in the Mass, at the end of which the officiating priest did not say 'Ite Missa est' nor did the congregation respond 'Deo gratias.' Instead there was a startling exchange of: 'Heehaw, heehaw, heehaw!'

That spark of grace not quite dead in man's nature has always sympathized with the overlooked creatures of this world, whether they have been tragically neglected or mundanely taken for granted. If a stranger's eye was drawn to a scene of uproarious joy, he would probably spot very swiftly the wistful expression of one soul who for some reason could not participate fully in the happy moment. And there are few things more mournful looking than the long, sweet face of a donkey.

A delight it is then to meditate on the song above and relish the glories that have belonged to that beast of burden. Though some may sneer or sigh that it is only for a moment that the underdog has his day, this is not the correct way of viewing that fraction of glory. The 'day' that a creature occasionally has is meant to be a revelation of one's true worth in the midst of worldly confusion, not merely a sop that the world throws to a part of the machine to prevent that cog's melancholy from growing into discontent. The glorification of the ass on this day is warranted, and what's more, it is true. Its humble anatomy and powers achieved more than all the animals mentioned in the above hymn, and those lines are not exagerrations. Its humble forbearance gave so much back to the world, and for that it will be honoured forever by man when he finds a moment to clear his head and think. Having thought, I thank you, Sir Ass!

Taking up my needlework and gazing on the reverse side of my embroidery, I am reminded of an image drawn in words by St. Pio of Pietrelcina. As we gaze up at God's Plan from beneath it, we observe only haphazard threads, random lines of colours, uneven knots, and frayed plies where the threads were cut off. Like a little child gazing up at his mother's stitchery from a little stool, we see an ugly farce of a pattern. I showed my work to some twelve-year old students in catechism today. One young boy arched his brow and said with his very adult cadence, 'Did you make the other side like that on purpose?' I replied, 'I could not have helped it if I tried. I wanted to create something beautiful, and that meant strain and ugliness on the other side of the pattern.'

Perhaps my answer does not in anyway--literally or allegorically--resemble the Truth behind God's will in the event of sorrow. He does not answer us while we traverse this Earth, as He did not answer Job. When that righteous man cried out, provoked past endurance by the religious censure of his friends, he received the great Non-Answer of God. That which is transcribed below concerns the very elements that have recently and cruelly afflicted the Haitian people:

Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou Me. Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? tell Me if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Upon what are its bases grounded? or who laid the corner stone thereof, When the morning stars praised Me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody? Who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as issuing out of the womb: When I made a cloud the garment thereof, and wrapped it in a mist as in swaddling bands? I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors:

And I said: Hitherto thou shalt come, and shalt go no further, and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves. Didst thou since thy birth command the morning, and shew the dawning of the day its place? And didst thou hold the extremities of the earth shaking them, and hast thou shaken the ungodly out of it? The seal shall be restored as clay, and shall stand as a garment: From the wicked their light shall be taken away, and the high arm shall be broken.

Hast thou entered into the depths of the sea, and walked in the lowest parts of the deep? Have the gates of death been opened to thee, and hast thou seen the darksome doors? Hast thou considered the breadth of the earth? tell me, if thou knowest all things? Where is the way where light dwelleth, and where is the place of darkness: That thou mayst bring every thing to its own bounds, and understand the paths of the house thereof.

Didst thou know then that thou shouldst be born? and didst thou know the number of thy days? Hast thou entered into the storehouses of the snow, or has thou beheld the treasures of the hail: Which I have prepared for the time of the enemy, against the day of battle and war? By what way is the light spread, and heat divided upon the earth? Who gave a course to violent showers, or a way for noisy thunder:

That it should rain on the earth without man in the wilderness, where no mortal dwelleth: That it should fill the desert and desolate land, and should bring forth green grass? Who is the father of rain? or who begot the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice; and the frost from heaven who hath gendered it? The waters are hardened like a stone, and the surface of the deep is congealed.

Shalt thou be able to join together the shining stars the Pleiades, or canst thou stop the turning about of Arcturus? Canst thou bring forth the day star in its time, and make the evening star to rise upon the children of the earth? Dost thou know the order of heaven, and canst thou set down the reason thereof on the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that an abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings, and will they go, and will they return and say to thee: Here we are? (Job 38: 3-35)

Job rose to meet the Grace occasioned by this holy visitation. Rather than legalistically pointing out that his personal misery remains and had not been addressed, he was raised to humility. Shaken out of rumination on his fell fortune, all that exists in his being stood forth to praise the existence established by Him That Is, the great Sum Qui Sum--Being Itself. Not in the annihilation of Quietism, but in the unity God intended for all to whom He imparted life, Job humbly responds thusly:

What can I answer, who hath spoken without considering? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. One thing I have spoken, which I wish I had not said: and another, to which I shall add no more. (Job 39: 34-35)

A portion of the Haitian people seem to have taken the same route. This Sunday, many of those that could attended Mass, as I did in Poland. Unlike me, they had to hold handkerchiefs to their noses so as not to be overcome by the smell of death. Father Eric Toussaint, a priest wondrously possessing the surname of a beatified Haitian, stood in the ruins of their dead bishop's seat and said:

Why give thanks to God? Because we are here. We say 'Thank you God.' What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now...I watched the destruction of the cathedral from this window. I am not dead because God has a plan for me...What happens is a sign from God, saying that we must recognize his power - we need to reinvent ourselves. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100117/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake)

I cannot say that I know what it is to suffer. It takes but a brief glance on history, the lives of the saints, or today's headlines to humble any travail I may have endured. Yet, I shall not say that I do not what it is to suffer. Rather, I know what it is to not suffer. Perhaps not everyone is possessed of this condition; certainly, not every spiritual advisor is aware of it. Yet, it has spiritual temptations of its own.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky gave voice to so much of my inward resentment of reality's pains through his character Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan attempts either to justify or elaborate his reasons for disbelieving in a benevolent god to his brother Alyosha, by arguing that even given God's inevitable triumph and promise of paradise, suffering can never be answered for. Not the whole glory of creation can blot out the travail of one single innocent:

This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents...Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty -- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this...Can you understand why a little creature...should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice...Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! (The Brothers Karamazov: Book V, Chapter 4)

Like Ivan, I have felt such resentment. There have been moments when, like he, I almost flattered myself that I loved these suffering souls more than the God who created them: 'I would never do or allow such a thing. I would tear out the hair of a mother who abused her child, scratch the eyes of a man who would dare harm one of these little ones. If I saw a hungry child and had the ability to provide, I would not withhold sustenance from him.'

Yet, stronger than the feelings of resentment towards God, was the guilt. All of the fortunate men on Earth who truly contemplate the unfortunate feel it in some form or other at some point in their lives. In some, it manifests itself in self-justification and condemnation of less fortunate. Those who are afflicted have sinned, ergo we need not pity them. Weal is for the holy, and woe is for the evil. Others take the path of Ivan Karamazov and choose to despise the World and its Creator for even allowing the problem of pain.

That guilt's spiritual agony is unrelenting at times. To breathe clean air and know the Chinese are stifled with pollution, just as many of my forbears were during the Industrial Revolution, to lie on my bed, knowing that I am secure against civil unrest and may sleep soundly, to drink my clean, safe water, to be hungry and know that my stomach will be filled in less than a day, to walk on two sound legs, to be conscious of my sound, healthy body, my educated mind, and my wholesome familial history is at times maddening!

'Why? Why am I given these things and others are not? How can I be happy when others are not allowed happiness? God, why can't you make me as miserable and wretched as they are, so they cannot lord it over me?' I choke on these last words for two reasons. The first obviously being uncertainty concerning my fortitude--my petty dread of suffering. The second being, that I realize so much of my abhorrence of the horrors plaguing humanity stems from my pride, not from my fraternal love or humility.

To my 'why', I know God will at least say this: 'I do not spare thee, because thou dost deserve it.' Therein lies the rub and the source of my discomfort. I am not childlike and cannot accept the lot God has given me or others. When I contribute aid to the needy, it is often with the greatest misery of spirit, because I refuse to accept that God knows better than I what is good for them. It is not enough to assist; I would wish to reverse their entire fortunes, to erase their pained existence from human history. Too often I have refused to accept that the great Sculptor, mercilessly chiselling on particular fine piece of marble loves that statue more than this rough-hewn block of granite looking on.

Worse still, I see where the miserable side of my 'compassion' will lead.


The Unease of the Non-Sufferer: I by Rachel Rudd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at foolishnessntears.blogspot.com.