Advent Journal: The Single Note and the Song

I

“Suddenly it’s okay I want to disappear.” I wrote that sentence a week or so ago and don’t remember did I use it in anything.

I used to wonder about it, the desire to disappear, and worry was something wrong. Is it okay to want to disappear? Nobody talked about it. But it lands differently now, this impulse, less as a death wish and more as a life wish. Something obscures the light of justice and love and I want that something to disappear. If that happens to be a self to which I am attached, then okay. We can let the self be gone.

But mostly it’s not the self that’s being released so much as the many prerogatives that self insists on. I am allowed to be angry, vengeful, distant, uncooperative, judgmental, greedy et cetera. I’m allowed to feel those feelings and act on them. It’s okay if I’m doing it. But Jesus says no. That’s not okay. You can’t privilege yourself over or against anybody. Everybody serves everybody. And he practices what he preaches.

It’s hard to change your mind but you can grit your teeth and not say the mean thing. You can do the dishes even though it’s not your night, grumbling all the way. But it’s funny. If you alter your behavior, your mind clears a little. There’s more space for the light to enter; there’s fewer blocks it needs to navigate. Change your mind and your ass will follow or move you ass and your mind will change seem to sugar out the same way. It’s like there’s no separation anywhere.

II

I learned lessons I wish I hadn’t, and unlearning them was hard. Is hard?

For example, I know what it means to be punished. It was possible to be wrong or bad – I was both, often – and punishment was always the response. Punishment meant losing something – a snack, a meal, a book, a visit with friends – or it meant being hit or forced to stay in your room or having your mouth washed with soap or whatever. The pain was intentional – it was supposed to be how you learned your lesson. Nor was it proportional or consistent. The idea was, if you smack a dog hard enough and frequently enough, the dog will stop doing the bad or wrong thing. But that’s not fair to dogs, even if technically – sometimes – it seems to work.

I did not learn the lesson and instead developed a kind of masochistic approach to suffering. I interpreted it as noble. I welcomed punishment. This was a survival mechanism at first (never blame a child for the conditioning of the adult) but it became a sad and detrimental pathology. Being good at enduring suffering is a thing that happens but it’s not a good thing. There’s another way.

I identified with animals growing up. They paid a high price to be in the world, and nearly all of them left it early against their will. They are my brothers and sisters. Over a two-year period in the early aughts I wrote a sequence of short stories that were pretty biographical. R. read them and wrote me a long letter, the gist of which was, damn those animals you grew up with suffered . . . And I saw clearly in that moment my identification with animals and never wrote a short story again. I didn’t have to. I had spoken a truth, it had been received by another, and returned to me with even greater clarity. That’s art. Or, at least, it’s art for me.

III

The thing about Jesus – or a thing about Jesus – is that people think of him as an alpha. And I think in certain ways, he was a leader, yes. But the movement he founded – discerned through a careful poeisis that involves study, prayer and intentional activity – is more beta than alpha. Communion and service undergird a commitment to radical equality. The message to men is, you’re not in charge and there’s nothing inherent in your mind or body that mandates otherwise. But it’s not an order – like Jesus is bossing you around. It’s an observation about the nature of God’s Love and how it works. And honestly? Isn’t it a relief to let go of the illusion of your specialness in order to finally experience authentic relationship? Holy relationship? You really do have to put the other first. There is no other way to happiness and peace.

IV

T. always wants to correct me. He is very gentle and patient. “Sean,” he says. “There is no world.”

The blind horse whinnies for breakfast. Voices carry from the lumber mill, low rumble of pickups. The sky is heavy and dark, snow clouds obscuring the moon and stars. I can only just make out the hemlocks behind the barn, the bare forsythia on its eastern side.

The metaphysics don’t interest me anymore. There is no world, fine, but there is relationship and relationship is context. The work is to bring oneself into coherence in the relationship. “Into coherence” means a kind of harmony, where the note you are and the note the other is becomes a melody (like the two-note sing song of chickadees). And that melody intersects with other melodies to become a song. How are the single note and the song separate? Can the one exist without the other?

None of this is theoretical! It might start there – you might linger there a long time – but eventually you have to enter the relationship. You have to discover and remember the note you are and then offer yourself up in creativity and play. It takes no time at all to be exactly the way God created you. It’s all given and it’s this: this this.

Jesus says, give it away. He doesn’t invent a new religion, doesn’t set up a healing practice in Galilee, doesn’t set a price. Nobody has to earn or pay for the love of God. Personally, I’m pretty good at this with the animals. I can love a dog or a horse with a lot of purity. I’m polyamorous with chickadees and crows. But people are harder. They tell you you’re wrong or bad or whatever. They set you up to suffer.

Jesus says, don’t argue, let it go, and I don’t argue and I mostly let it go. Mostly. Later – in morning prayer – I tell him that his project is beautiful but unrealistic. Unconditional love? Total equality? The end of suffering?

Come on. It’s impossible.

He is very gentle and patient. “Sean,” he asks. “For whom?”