"Thirty-six stories above the sleeping city, the clock glows three. My naked form shrouded in the window hangings, hidden for a moment from his eyes. Eyes searching the pale glimmer of glass and steel. Uncalled and unknown, a silent breeze carries a voiceless song through the night. Dreamless death scatters before this euphony entering my vision. In a gasp of time, a whisper of transcendence, there was a More penetrating the unforgiving silence. He broke into the moment and brought conclusion with the touch of his hand. The window received my back as I turned again to his embrace."
Excerpt from "Black"
A movie. Product of hollywood and one of its most successful stars. Never has the wake of a film brought such fanatical speeches from every societal element imaginable. One guy pays what would be the average man's annual salary to purchase each seat in the theatre because he wants everyone he's ever met to experience the epiphanic power of the Passion. And another guy compares the movie to hardcore pornography. Hoards swarm against the film as anti-semitic bigotry. Others deem it empty brutality. Perhaps the most pervasive question is where is the love? What could possibly be the point of this torturous portrayal? Having sat through the two-hour pummeling myself, these fierce outcries at first astound me. In the theatre, with uncharacteristic sobs rendering me helpless with each scene, I was only aware of the relentless will of Christ to complete this ultimate act of love. Love so fierce, I quail at the mere remembrance of it. The one uniting force behind every statement I've heard and felt regarding this film is pure extremism. Even if it is extreme apathy. Like a lover staring hard at the wall while his beloved walks out, trying to convince only himself that he does not care. It is not so much that I consider Gibson's work to be ordained, but it is certainly lighting upon an important thread. After all, people have killed and been killed simply for their response to this story. This, in fact, being the most accessible form of coping that history has offered us thus far. It is no wonder then that so many find the words of the fanatic in their usually reasonable speech. Certainly there is some fear of how the proponents of the story might behave, looking to how they have behaved in the past. A modern day Spanish Inquisition. But if my own experience is any indication, the biggest fear must be that the story might actually be true. Coping with that reality is a challenge beyond what most of us can find within ourselves. As our society is currently proving, a composed response is the last possibility.
"The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, 'Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.' A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"
C.S. Lewis, _Till We Have Faces_
With such beginnings, it would seem that the only response would be the fantastic sacrifice of one's own life in return. The compelling fantasy of martyrdom. But to live in this place, to complete the tasks that beg the question of true purpose - somehow it is here that He intends to meet us. Yet daily I wake fearing that the quipping, chatting fury will finally obscure the Voice I have heard touching my dreams, interrupting my silent solitude. Tomorrow will be the day I forget what beauty I once dared to believe. As for today, hope has captured my eyes this little bit longer.
How dare He love like this. What human can possibly accept such brutal extravagance. We are saved, but to what existence. Living with the knowledge that we were His reason. The slightest understanding of such a concept is more than can be borne. Yet such is this Message. Such is the hope handed to us. To deny these hands appears the only way to quiet, peace. But I have grasped my fate, and I hear only the cry Yes and Soon. My tears are my ashes today as I beg for dust to dust. To see Him is all I have strength left to desire. Though the desire prove only pain to me here.
With even the best of ourselves - the secret thoughts treasured quietly, enshrined in hopeful blossoms - with even this the cause of pain in others - jealousy, love turned possession - how is it that any of us continue? Trapped behind only our eyes, we see our hands reaching out with benevolence and love at the fingertips, only to watch confused as the gifts are transformed to prejudice and selfishness even as they leave our grasp. This being so common that each has a tale to prove the maxim "we hurt those we love." In the face of this, who has the power to embrace another? Who can possibly trust themselves with the affections of another with one's own affections forever suspect? Perhaps only the ephemeral moments of beauty seen passing behind the eyes of another keeps bringing us back to the perils of love. The momentary glimpsing of the beloved in an other. For this, we seem willing to face the certainties of disappointment and harm. For this, we breathe another day.
Fingers of the dark grasping the
Shreds of soul left
From the picking of time's fancy
Safety the figment of hiding
Yet never hidden
From one who knows no
Sleep and seeks no rest
