Stop and Go

"There are three aspects of nature which command man’s attention: power, loveliness, grandeur. Power he exploits, loveliness he enjoys, grandeur fills him with awe. We take it for granted that man’s mind should be sensitive to nature’s loveliness. We take it equally for granted that a person who is not affected by the vision of earth and sky, who has no eyes to see the grandeur of nature and to sense the sublime, however vaguely, is not human.

But why? What does it do for us? The awareness of grandeur does not serve any social or biological purpose; man is very rarely able to portray his appreciation of the sublime to others or to add it to his scientific knowledge. Nor is its perception pleasing to the sense or gratifying to our vanity. Why, then, expose ourselves to the disquieting provocation of something that defies our drive to know, to something which may even fill us with fright, melancholy or resignation? Still we insist that it is unworthy of man not to take notice of the sublime.

Perhaps more significant than the fact of our awareness of the cosmic is our consciousness of having to be aware of it, as if there were an imperative, a compulsion to pay attention to that which lies beyond our grasp."

―Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Man is Not Alone”

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Dear Kate,

I'm going to stop writing for a while, at least until my neck feels significantly better.  It's simply not sustainable for me to work all day facing a computer, writing before that and reading after, all with a posture so similar that it's fossilizing my upper body.

I'm happy about this decision to take better care of myself. The 42 books you brought me (and more to come shortly, I hope) will keep me occupied for a while, and I will read them lying down, hopefully won't have the big ones falling on my face (which, actually, might be kinda fun, the kind of nosebleed I want if I am to have one). I am happy too it's too much of a good thing that I'm trying to stop, which is the best way to end anything--including dying, now that I come to think of it.

Like I said in my last letter, I wish you'll never stop being an artist, a real artist who will speak against tyranny, not for it.  You might think that's what you've been doing all along, and I'm sure the intention has been there. But always pay good attention to your own speaking, listen to yourself: Does your world get static and smaller after you speak?  Have you inadvertently spoken for tyranny while reciting, analyzing the "necessities" and "facts" of life?  The trouble is, if we have, we wouldn't know.  When our imagination is monopolized by an "ideological totalism," not only no serious alternatives seem on offer, we wouldn't even know there's gift to receive.

Life is a gift.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."  Strange enough that's what God does everyday, offering us something sacred, something sublime, something new, while we keep trampling His gifts under the full weight of our life's lightness, the same old way every new morning.

"Monday morning...sigh..."  The words of a godless man, keep dying into his deeper death, superficial, thoughtless, ridiculously vulnerable to the shift of the smallest particles, shivering in summer, shriveling in winter, planting much but harvesting little, eating lots but never has enough, drinking much but never has his fill, putting on clothes but never feels any warmth, earning wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

Well, I am not going to get myself started when announcing my plan to stop.  Maybe I will break my fast by tomorrow.  Something new is always on offer.  For now I plan to die a little, eagerly anticipating of what's to come.  Some people like to say "God willing," but I think it's the biggest waste of words, sanctimonious redundancy.  If God doesn't will, nothing will be.

Thanks for your friendship.  This won't be long.  I am going to take a walk now.  It's resurrection day.

Yours, Alex

PS.  I love this picture I've taken yesterday when walking to church.  The guy just walked up and posed for me, like he knew the secret of my heart.