When Burke began writing about the sublime, he offered a wonderful new delineation. It was his observation that while beauty comes from the appreciate of aesthetics, the sublime comes from our abject fears, especially our fears of things that can kill us. Terror, he said, is akin to pain in our minds. It anticipates it and so experiences a shadow of what pain is. I suppose one could say that in anticipation of death we experience a little bit of that death. Oh wait… someone did say that!

One day when I was in boot camp, our division went down to the pool area for swim training. There were a number of different things we were going to practice once we got wet, not the least of which was the invaluable skill of not drowning; but before we could press on to the details, we had to get in the water. The pool had a diving platform over the deep end. I couldn’t say exactly how high it was, though I’m certain that memory over time has increased the height by no small margin. Still, I clearly remember being intimidated at the first sight. It was big, no fooling around.

The instructors explained what was about to happen to us as we stripped into our bathing suits. The divisions were lined up heel to toe in that familiar Navy fashion, each recruits back pressing uncomfortably close to the chest behind him. We formed a long sinuous line around the pool and up to the long ladder of the platform. Someone had thought to turn out most of the lights in the building, turning the water into a strange black unknown. A spot light shined down on the tip of the platform, though, bathing it in a yellowish light that called out the dust more than illuminating anything interesting. We stood there, carefully focusing our eyes on nothing in particular. As one of the lucky guys with glasses, I found myself even more blind than usual, having had to leave them back on the pile of clothes to my side. My entire world was reduced to a sweat stained white t-shirt in front of me, and the hazy, bright heat of the lamp far overhead.

My nervousness started climbing up into my throat as I took each step on the ladder. Step, choke, step, choke. As I reached the top, things took on a whole new reality. The ground was different here. It was roughly textured, like grated asphalt or maybe one of those rocks people use to exfoliate. The platform felt solid enough, even though we were so high. There were more instructors up here too. They split our thin line into several, each as tightly grouped as before. I thought we looked like the heads of a hydra, reaching out over the water like gaping jaws.

Up ahead of me, four recruits stood in my line leading up to the illuminated edge. The one in front took a step forward until his feet were as far as they could go. To his sides, another five were in step with him. The line reminded me strikingly of gallows. A sharp command sounded out from an instructor too near to be anywhere but the platform, but seemingly invisible as he stood just outside of the light. “Go!” he shouted, and the men stepped forward into oblivion.

The giant hall was not made for normal acoustics. Sounds ricocheted off the metal walls again and again while each splash and command stretched on forever. The line pressed forward. My heart was thundering so loud that I thought it must be echoing off the walls too. We stepped forward. Another vague splash and the air was empty. The little group of men in front of me shortened dangerously while I tried to come to grips with what was about to happen.

I was instructed on what to do. I knew how to cross my arms, how to position my feet, and where my hands should rest. I knew that once I hit the water I would need to swim forward and find my group, buddy up and distribute the PFDs so we could all stay afloat. I knew somewhere in my mind that Navy Seals were lurking down below in the water, waiting for poorly conditioned recruits to kick when they shouldn’t, or splash too much. They were waiting like sharks in the water, there to teach us a lesson. Somewhere in all my thinking, a few more splashes were heard.

The last body in front of me disappeared into the darkness and left behind that bright spot light glaring into my eyes. I could see the edge of the platform. I could feel the rough stone on my feet, gripping. A command was uttered and I stepped up to the edge, my toes hanging off into the darkness. I didn’t look down; there was no point. I knew already that it would just be darkness and sounds.

In my head, my mind raced with thoughts, trying to catch up with what was happening. Things were moving too quickly. I wasn’t ready to go yet. My throat was solid and my chest weighed down with a heavy feeling I couldn’t understand. I could feel the breathing of the recruit behind me, and I wanted to step to the side, look around, catch my breath, ask for a minute, do anything.

“Go!”

My hands crossed, gripping my shirt and my nose. My feet stepped. I was falling. But no, that wasn’t right, I was still protesting, trying to find my place, to center my fear and deal with it. I needed to get it in check before I could…

Splash!

The water was cold and it hit like the shock from an old wool blanket. I shot back up into the air and took a gasping breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. It was over.

It took me a while to understand how my body could act on one set of signals from my brain while the rest was so overly concerned with meaningless things like fear. My arms and legs did what they were told to do. They did it without a pause, without doubt, and without error. They did it without the fear that was all pervasive in my mind.

When Burke talks about the sublime sense of terror, of feeling ones own mortality, I think he only halfway addresses the origins of that psychology. There is obviously a great meaning in the way our animal fears can plague us. We can be shaken to the core, go pale as a ghost, or just let our jaws drop. I don’t think that’s enough of the story, though. It doesn’t address that other part of us.

That night on the platform, I was told what to do, but I hadn’t been trained at it. It was no mere reflex of action. It was not a conditioning to follow orders when they came from that self-confident voice. It was a spark of control over the uncontrollable that had come to me through pain, practice, and the knowledge that fear was no longer useful. I find something of the sublime in that and wonder at its meaning and place in my future life. Will I have cause for it one day?

There are so many kinds of love. There’s the love of pets and the love for them, the love of a favorite TV show about to begin its series finale, the love of your favorite baseball team when they’re down by one in the bottom of the ninth. There is the love of family and of friends, and the love of people you met for five minutes in an office years ago but have never left your memory. There’s also a love of each and every day, every moment ticking away on the clock. A love of time, of place, and of being.

Deus caritas est. (God is love)
    - 1 John 4:16

Theologians talk about caritas, or agapē, when they talk about God’s love for us. It’s an overwhelming, pure, unlimited kindness that goes beyond romance or want or even need. It is what first Corinthians talks about when it says it isn’t boastful, it isn’t proud. It’s the type of love, in particular, that religious are to seek in their relationships with, well, everyone.

It’s still hard for me to find that type of love, even (or especially) in relationships I’ve had for a long time. Maybe that makes it harder, though. When I have a certain type of love for someone already, it is so much more difficult to shift that into caritas, into charity. Romantic love, especially, screams at me saying that it is more important, or deeper than charity, that it deserves to be respected and explored. I know in my mind that’s not all true, that it gets a part of its strength from its self-serving nature. Still, the difficulty remains. It’s a struggle I don’t foresee becoming any easier with time.

It may not be easy, but when it comes I feel it more strongly than anything else. I know that if any of my tiny loves compare to it, it is only as a shadow cast along a wall in passing. God’s love is enormous and subtle, and it provokes such awe and clarity that it wakes us up from our petty dreams to point us in a direction and say with the clear clarion only available to angels, "Here it is! Here I am!"

Still, even with the experience in my pocket, there are days when I fall for the old habits. I want love, not just to love. It’s inescapable, even if it weren’t broadcast across our culture in blazing lights. That want is human as well, and I don’t think I can necessarily call it wrong. Though the selfless love may be altruistic and divine, and thus qualitatively better, that doesn’t diminish the greatness that comes from being loved by another person. Just because one thing is infinitely good, infinity minus one is still increasing without bounds. (There’s a cardinality vs. cardinals joke in there somewhere, but my math nerd skills aren’t up to it)

I know what I should do. I know that I need to bridge those gaps and put things in the right perspective. Times will come in the future where I’ll experience this same dilemma and I should put in the practice now at developing those relationships into a love that is healthy for celibacy. Based on what I’m experiencing so far, I’d say it’s a slow process.

Of course, I can’t turn a blind eye to romantic relationships. Even though it’s not the path I’m headed down, I already find myself counseling other people on theirs. I typically take the position of offering up my mistakes as a guide for things they might want to avoid, but that’s only really appropriate for surface level advice. So many friends are coming to me these days with worries about finding a love in which to share their life. I guess with all of us hitting our 30s, they’re beginning to wonder why life hasn’t fallen into place like they expected. But that’s the key, isn’t it? Life is never what we expected. How many of us can look back at our 8th grade yearbook, slide our finger down to the “What do you want to do when you grow up?” line, read off our grand plans and say honestly, “Yup, I nailed it.” How many of us planned out our futures when we left for college? How many of us are even in the same career as when we began? These are just the mechanical things of the day to day. They are jobs, homes, cars. How much more complex and unpredictable is love!

Even though it’s unpredictable, and life takes us on twists, that doesn’t help people who feel left behind, who feel alone. I want to say, “of course you’ll find someone!” I want to tell them that it will work out better than they could have planned, but that’s not the way of life, and it’s not the way of God. He challenges us at every turn. The better we are at things, the more skilled or talented, the more the challenges become. He never abandons us, but he doesn’t make it easy.

It’s tempting to take a break from your life and look to the side, at the lives of others passing by like cars on a highway. It’s tempting to look and say, “look how easy they have it! They’re in the carpool lane and it’s moving so quick.” We so rarely see their challenges, though. We trick ourselves into simple habits, like pretending that if we could only have this one thing, all of life would be okay. That’s never the case, though, is it?

More often than not, I think my friends will find the love they’re looking for. It might happen soon, or not for many years. Most will find it. There is another group, though, who may not. That’s the big conspiracy of our modern world. That’s the horror movie too scary for the big screen. What happens to the people who never find a romance to last the rest of their lives?

They live and love anyway.

That’s the big secret. God doesn’t call us all to married life! Just as he doesn’t call everyone to religious life, just as he doesn’t give us all the same gifts and passions. And that’s okay.

I know we all want it, but the wanting isn’t love in itself. The wanting is just the self crying out at the outrage of not having what others have. There is still love available for everyone, even if it isn’t romantic love. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s anything less than romance, either. It is far more grace-filled and awe-inspiring. It is the love that creates worlds!

Whether you’re one of those people who has already found your special love, one who is still looking and will discover it soon, or one of us who will live by the love of charity and fill your life with the friendship of many, God’s love is there for every single person, without exception. It’s even there for us screw-ups who misuse it, abuse it, and fail to spot it when we should be on our knees thanking heaven. It’s there for sinners and saints alike.

Let all that you do be done in love.
    - 1 Corinthians 16:14

After I was accepted into the novitiate, the Vocation Director offered a warning that the time before entrance day could be very difficult. He was right on the nose with that one. Despite my best efforts to stay on task, my prayer life has been slipping. I need to refocus what I’m doing and get back on track.

There are a number of books I should be reading right now that could help me prepare, but instead I’ve been bingeing the Dresden series. It’s really started getting good and I’m just tearing through them so fast that it’s really satisfying, but I think it has contributed to my present situation. Normally I institute a very strict policy for myself that I can read only one fantasy novel between my non-fiction books. This keeps me from going off the deep end and losing myself into rich series, like I did with the Wheel of Time back at Rowan. I’ve let myself become lax, and that will have to change.

As soon as I finish reading the 9th book in the series, I’ll be jumping back into The First Jesuits, which is incredibly interesting, but reads like an encyclopedia. Still, it is one of the books I’m supposed to be reading in preparation for entrance day, and I’ve let it slide now for too long.

What about you folks out there? Is there something going on that you’ve lost sight of, something you need to refocus, to stay on target?

St. Augustine probably did more good than bad with his writing, but it doesn’t help me be any less frustrated. City of God, City of Man, two worlds which collide at an invisible line between the real and the unreal. The concept wasn’t his, but I still blame him for the popularity in common thought. Without Augustine, would we really have this all-pervasive gnostic sense about our own selves? Would we really see the spirit and the body as two separate entities? How different would our actions be if we never turned over the idea, if instead we knew ourselves as a whole, indivisible and inseparable from the here and now.

That’s the biggest problem I have with gnostic ideas. It’s not that there isn’t anything to be learned by classifying and delineating, but when we attribute individual value and stop seeing our bodies as part of our souls and vice versa, we stop seeing the entire person. More than that, we stop seeing each other.

There is no path to God through the soul alone. You can’t shed this flesh and ride your spirit alone up to the heavens. The body is not an anchor weighing you down. It is not a prison. All these ideas, they make us see ourselves in such a dark way, as if the only thing of worth were buried beneath a dirty mask. It’s a wonder how people survived with those thoughts at all!

Theology is a little beyond me tonight. It’s late and I’m only up because of an ill-advised nap this afternoon. In a few minutes I’ll be back in bed letting my slumbering mind take me on silly journeys where my cat is the conductor of an illegal space-train. I guess I just needed to get that thought out of my head.

And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.

“And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’

“And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’”
    - Luke 13:6-9 (The Parable of the Fig Tree)

Some of the people I’ve met recently can point to one or two parables or passages in the Bible and say, “Look at that! That is where I found God’s purpose for me!” I’m not sure I ever saw a message so personal or clear in any particular thing. I identify with a lot of different biblical stories. As most of you know, I like to make a lot of analogies and find metaphor in just about everything that crosses my path. Maybe that has kept me from developing a special bond with any one thing; there’s too much to choose from.

The parable of the fig tree, though, has long managed to fall into a special category, or perhaps I should say a lack of category. It’s not that I don’t understand it, and it’s not that I can’t place its meaning in my life. The fig tree has some other element to it, an element of the numinous, ineffable sacred. I suppose, if you allow me to personify it a bit, the parable is like a man facing away from me. I know he is a man. I see what he is about and what he is doing, but his face is hidden.

A few minutes ago, I experienced a totally cheesy, totally predictable twist. At least, that’s how I’d describe it if my life were a movie. As I read the passage again that person/parable turned around to face me and there I was, staring back at myself. I told you it was predictable!

I’ve been learning to pray by placing myself in the scenes, becoming the actors, becoming onlookers, really being there. I have no idea why I never put myself into the position of that tree before, but the moment I realized it things woke up inside me.

How do I see myself? Am I worthy of being saved? How much longer can I go on “bearing no fruit”? If I am tended to, if I make the right decisions and respond to what my vineyard-keeper is trying to sow in my life, will I have a real worth? What is my fruit? It is love (caritas), obviously! Charity is the fruit that becomes the seed, that grows and spreads and falls again and again… The questions, the metaphors, they go on and on until I catch myself shaking my head back and forth in wonder at the blindness of a moment ago, of a lifetime ago.

This is what contemplative prayer is. It is waking up. It is suddenly having words stop being words in such a profound way that you shake your head at your former self, wondering how you could have ever been that person. It is waking up in a moment and knowing, just knowing, that you are making the right decision.

On that note, I received word that I have been accepted to enter the tri-state novitiate for the Maryland, New York, and New England Provinces of the Society of Jesus this summer.

The letter represents a culmination of a decade of discernment, countless hours of writing, of reading, and prayer; and yet this is just another beginning. It is a milestone, a thing to be celebrated with joy and excitement, but I can’t fool myself into thinking I have really accomplished anything yet. I still stare at my branches and see no fruit. Maybe this represents buds?

I try more and more every day to live my life like I am fully in bloom, to share the love and faith and my sense of joy in the Lord. Soon I will have more support in that respect than I’ve ever known. I will also have people pushing me (and pulling me, I’m sure) to do more, to be more, to grow in that relationship of faith. The idea is so amazing, I can’t even come up with a pretty metaphor!

New things are on the horizon. I love new things.

To those of you who have been praying for me, thank you so much for absolutely everything. If you have a moment, join me in praying for the other (currently anonymous) souls who are still in the long discernment/application process. God bless!