posted May 01, 2013 04:50 AM
There is something of deep love in terror.A genuine, ghastly breath of horror steals over us, and we feel ourselves suddenly bound to all shivering, heart-broken, suffering humanity. Frailer than the flimsiest spider-line, sailing in the wind at the end of a light, we can think of nothing but love. All our brothers, baby-faced, pink-knuckled, crowding in the public spaces and, again, lost in odd labyrinths of sleep -- lost in their own idiosyncratic nightscapes -- cannot seem, then, so far from us. And our sisters, lips rent with ushering screams, clutching to their troublesome breasts and wombs some fragile, ragged, blue-blooded babe. All of us cannot seem so distant.
Our broken hearts somehow bind us more securely than all that is good, or only seems good, winding down deceptively like daylight, only to drip away down gutters. Yes, more than the green-golden rays that touch us, and warm our strange flesh for a moment, before spreading into nothing. This blood, this rage, this open wound of lust and pain, weaves together in substantial tragedy our silly, open days. Our suffering makes us great. Our fear makes us more than beautiful and brave.
Where is grandeur, where is gorgeous harmony, without blood running, bones cracking, eyes widening in sudden realization of horrible, unbearable, dishonorable truth!? Then every man is pulled from himself, to be a brother and a father to all. Every woman comes full force, to stand in her power, ready to hope; anxious to be of simple service to the love-starved. Oh, our pain, our night-tremors, our evil hours, and crippling phantasmagorical dreams, all do us some divine, miraculous, wondrous good work! What seems to carry us furthest from our hearts, and out into the deep reaches of cold, cold space -- really carries us home, into the hearts of our human family.
I swear, I have never felt so tender, so ready to forgive, as in those gut-wrenching moments of purest terror. It was then that love found me, and I could not, for an instant, think of harming anyone, or letting slip the merest word of angst. I wanted them all safe, as only then could I feel myself safe, cared for, attended by patient spirits. I wanted to bless them from a thousand hearts; from all their hearts; to set their hearts spinning like balancing plates, and keep them up in that love; spinning endlessly, offering love together. It was then that I could understand what it meant to be a sacrifice. To give oneself utterly, uncompromisingly, without thought. To be on fire with the tenderest, raw love. I wanted that. To be Christ.