Gratitude and Kindness. Twin totems of the good life.
If I wake from troubled dreams, provided I can only remember to remember "Gratitude and Kindness," the trouble does not make it beyond the first dozy readjustment of arms against the pillow. If my mind floods for a moment with memories of N___, N___ to whom I find it difficult to afford even a pronoun as pronouns provide a presence somehow, a solidity, and it is painful to concede such memories any solidity, Gratitude and Kindness (if I can remember to bring even just their names to my mind) keep my thoughts from dark places. Gratitude and Kindness are the safeguards of courage, and the more courageous one feels, the more natural love becomes. When fear is gone, love is inevitable.
"Love your enemies..." Matthew 5:44. Every translation I have come across uses the term "enemy" here, and I must believe that something is lost in every translation. Your fellow man may regard you as his enemy, and still you may love him. This I believe. But you cannot regard your fellow man as your enemy and still love him. This is a contradiction. "Love your enemies" is a contradiction. I cannot love N___ provided I account him my enemy. If I am to love N___, I must learn to see him, to truly and whole-heartedly see him, as my fellow man, my neighbor, my friend. As soon as you love someone, that someone is no longer your enemy, and therefore it is impossible to love your enemy. You can "bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that...use you and persecute you," but you cannot love your enemy.
For thirteen years I have struggled with memories of N___. Mostly I have tried to blur, to efface, to repress. Occasionally I have tried to confront the memories head-on, but this is a work for much stronger constitutions than mine and, in my case, never ends well. To be at peace with my memories, I must find a way to love N___. I must find a way to love the most essential thing about N___. His soul. (A pronoun! This is progress; this is a good sign!)
Do I believe in the soul?
I do not know what I believe. My ignorance overwhelms me. I do not know how to articulate that in a way that properly conveys what I mean by it. My ignorance OVERWHELMS me. I feel the need to start from the ground-up learning-wise, but I've no idea where to begin. I have no guiding confidence in any of the available approaches to understanding the world. The scientist, the theologian, the historian, the poet, the philosopher, they ring in my ears as so many tongues of babel, all calling me, but I am as Buridan's ass caught between hay-bales. The limitations of my senses, of my spirit, of my time, of my imagination, of my Reason leave me utterly uncertain of everything. Where does one begin when one's utterly uncertain? If I were a relativist, that would be some help. Even relativists have faith, faith in the relativity of things. And faith is the key; faith is security; faith is a compass; faith tells you how to live and where to go and what to do. How do I develop faith? Faith in science, or faith in God, or faith in the senses, or faith in the intuitions, or faith in logic, or faith in feelings...how? How do I develop faith? Can I develop it? Or do you have to be born with it? Are some people just naturally faith-inclined?
Gratitude and Kindness teach me courage. They teach me to genuinely want the best for others, and not merely to act in others' interests because it benefits my own interests. When fear departs, all that remains is love: the most perfect, beautiful, unquenchable love.
I am thankful for today. I am thankful for almond-milk lattes and for alfresco tables. I am thankful for spinach salads eaten at the window of charming cafes in charming old American small-towns. I am thankful for honey-locusts in the dusk-light and for beautiful shop-girls who think I'm Australian. I am thankful for bare feet on the cool clay of lake trails. I am thankful for memories of wild strawberries rekindled by men with wild hair and cherry-red skin. I am thankful for Abel who keeps inspirational newspaper clippings in his back pocket. I am thankful for the feeling of always knowing someone and being known by someone in the places I visit, the feeling of community--this is precious in a world grown so large and dispersed. I am thankful for the look of my gold-ribboned shoes against the aged wood of the railway tracks. I am thankful for raspberries. I am thankful for the dungeons-and-dragons player at a further table who pauses mid-game to explain the finer points of World War 2 politics to his friend; I am thankful for the carefulness with which he numbers the allies on his fingers, and the gravity with which he quotes Churchill. I am thankful for the scent of flowers at sundown.
I do not know where to start, but I shall start somewhere. I am thankful for the opportunity to start.
I am thankful for today.
I am thankful there shall be a tomorrow.
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