What I am thankful for
Lance Dannan Bresee
God lies in the trials, tribulations, and detritus of a life that fails to
fulfill a personal aspiration of simple pleasures punctuated only by
controlled entertainments. "What God could allow suffering?" God is as
much a sham as the "happily ever after" of fairy tale.
"The happy ending is scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we
know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration,
dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the
forms we have loved." *
"Modern literature is devoted, in great measure, to a courageous, open-eyed
observation of the sickeningly broken figurations that abound before us,
around us, and within. Where the natural impulse to complain against the
holocaust has been suppressed - to cry out blame or announce panaceas - the
magnificence of an art of tragedy more potent (for us) than the Greek finds
realization: the realistic, intimate, and variously interesting tragedy of
democracy, where God is beheld crucified in the catastrophes not of the
great houses only but of every common home, every scoured and lacerated
face. And there is no make-believe about heaven, future bliss, and
compensation, to alleviate the bitter majesty, but only utter darkness, the
void of unfulfillment, to receive and eat back the lives that have been
tossed forth from the womb only to fail." *
"... the fairy tale of happiness ever after cannot be taken seriously; it
belongs to the never-never land of childhood which is protected from the
realities which will become terribly known soon enough ... which sober,
modern, Occidental judgement is founded on a total misunderstanding of the
realities depicted in the myth, the fairy tale,, and the divine comedies of
redemption." *
"The happy ending of the fairy tale ... is to be read, not as a
contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The
objective world remains as it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis
within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life
and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest, as indifferent to
the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a
bubble... Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and our attachment to the
forms; comedy; the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible."
*
"Only the bodies, of which this eternal, imperishable, incomprehensible Self
is the indweller, are said to have an end." **
"...life no longer suffers hopelessly under the terrible mutilations of
ubiquitous disaster, battered by time, hideous throughout space; but with
its horror visible still, its cries of anguish still tumultuous, it becomes
penetrated by an all-suffusing, all-sustaining love, and a knowledge of its
own unconquered power. ... The dreadful mutilations are seen as shadows,
only, of an immanent, imperishable eternity;" *
How sad it would be if all art were comic-book renderings, no cubism, no
romantics, no Italian frescos. How sad it would be if all drama were
television sit-coms. How sad it would be if all music were advertisement
jingles. How much sadder still, if all life were merely pleasantry and
happy entertainments. Like a couch potato, locked in his television drama,
becomes oblivious to the larger drama and adventure unfolding beyond his
dwelling portal, shouldn't we as well become so entertained as to miss the
larger event of which, even in our unconsciousness, we are an integral part?
So, I am thankful for all that life has to offer, the miseries and tragedies
as well as the joys, the grief as well as the passion, and, as always, for
the giver of all this majesty.
--
Lance Dannan Bresee
UCO/ Lick Observatory
Lower Astronomy Labs UCSC
Santa Cruz, Ca 95064
la...@ucolick.org
http://www.ucolick.org/~lance/home.html
* "The Hero With a Thousand Faces", by Joseph Campbell
** "Bhagavad Gita"
Buddy
> So, I am thankful for all that life has to offer, the miseries and tragedies
> as well as the joys, the grief as well as the passion, and, as always, for
> the giver of all this majesty.
Thank you, Lance. Nicely rendered piece.
--
Regards,
Buddy
(For email, remove the ninety-eight.)