My Story Of Darkness
I am reading a good
novel, Love in the Time of Cholera. I am only beginning it.
But, it turned me to writing. There seems to be a common fear of
death in the form of a fear of darkness, death as a darkness, in
other words. The chief character of the novel so far, an old man in
his eighties, tells that he fears death because of his fear he will
not find God in that darkness. I remember my mother at that age
telling me she was afraid. “Of what?” I asked her. She replied,
“Of what everybody fears I suppose, death.”
In old age we begin
to forget. We lose our learned skill of keeping up with life by
treating everybody and everything we encounter in the way we treat a
story as we read one. We begin to notice we are returning to a child
like world we had forgotten. Now, my question is this: whether we
comprehend by reading in accordance with the experiences we have had
in life or is it the other way around? Does the practice of reading
(and especially the experiences of being tested on the book) train us
to live in a false way regarding the things of reality? To treat them
by false ideals, I mean, by what we come to call by reading more and
more, our good judgment? And, sound principles. What
excites me here is really the notion we acquire our judgment falsely
because it, reading, reveals
a world we can seem to control. Therefore,
we like it! So, could the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Bible actually
be a metaphor for
a book? Could a book held in one's hands be telling that a book is
going to curse you soon in a terrible way and you will be cast out
of paradise and
left to earn
your living by your
wits? What a funny joke that would be! (All I know is there are two ways to
read the scriptures and they are vastly different.)
What
about this? I read a book to find out whether the author knows me
rather than to read a book to find out whether the author can teach
me what I do not know to help me understand how to control myself. In
the first way, I am looking for a friend. In the second I am looking
for a teacher who knows what is the matter with me who
can straighten me out.
If
I were a swan...I might ask
why there is a darkness in the first place. And, why do I fear it? My
friend urged me to meet the darkness now, while alive, and find out
its nature. Asked me whether I thought it better to wait until death
to find out. I was able then only to see: I want now to
know! How about you?
(hmmm...notice
the silent letter k is all that separates the words now
from know.)
That
leads me to suggest to you that you have encountered trouble
when you have tried to meet
the dark one, the one who does not speak your language, does not even
think at all, never scolds and never asks questions; and that
trouble has come from your
trained mind which
comes up with all manner of things for you to consider other than
that. Correct? Why would you not want to meet the rest of you so much
that you would interfere with
an honest wish on your own part just
to prevent it? You know, it takes a lot of attention
and hard work to keep
somebody from just sitting still for
a little while. Must be a
real threat, huh? A threat to what do you suppose?
I
met the dark void and knew it had been banished by my own decision
to engage in selfish
struggles to earn my living here by my wits; banished to a dungeon in
the soul of me where it had remained until I found it and asked what
it was doing there and would
it like to be my friend. It
had been waiting is what it
made me to understand.
For
what?
For
you. What took you so long?
That is my story of darkness.
