mccarthyism

I’m listening to Orient Is His Name again, and thinking about the distance between the life the Church offers, and life as it persistently is. It’s a recurring theme in his writing and one I’ve thought about quite a bit myself.

I would like to end all this darkness
All the time my mind is filled with it
But I am a child of light and not death
I am a Son of God
Hear this! Hear this!

or,

But I am this way, I am this way
I’ll wear the cassock and I'll take the name

I like the way he presents the Christian symbols, as universal verities, but at a respectful distance. Too often modern writers re-appropriate them for their own purposes, or piggyback on the sense of “mystery” they convey. Or else Christian writers use them too confidently or with too much familiarity. What you don’t often get is this good respectful distance, accepting them as true realities but realizing that we can apprehend them only gradually, only with great effort, and never completely.

It’s disconcerting, that distance. And repeating the truths to yourself, or pondering the imagery, doesn’t always help, or shake you from whatever rut you’re in. This morning at the Eucharist, going forward with the congregation, I was repeating to myself the confession, and reminding myself how badly I needed this, how beautiful and true it was. The most beautiful and the most true thing. But I was still angry, and self-absorbed. I still felt very wronged. It was still distant even as I ate it and drank it. We participate in realities we don’t comprehend, or comprehend only very little, and it takes courage or even audacity to do that.

Thought about my brother again during the prayers, as I always do, and at the end of the service while singing about light and mercy. "Let not my doubt and my darkness speak to me." He never returns my letters, which is fine. But he’s so far away; I never know quite what to write. My parents say he’s been depressed but doesn’t want medication. He’s unsure about the next step. They get to visit once a month and it’s always pretty traumatic for them. He's been through things I can't imagine - how long do you keep striving before you give in? But even as I think it I'm implicated in it. It's the same distance, for him a little further maybe. Kyrie eleison.