Another Choice

Ineluctably – and probably as soon as one is ready to bear it – one will have to touch, naked under this great Gaze, the visage in us of the contradiction.

One will have to touch this private rock of refusal, this diffuse, intolerable pain, this violence of one’s failure, this amassed suffering at the bottom of oneself, the concentration as into a somber diamond of one’s own long personal calvary, the incommunicable cavalry of one’s separation, of provoked oblivion, of the fall and escape: rather not to be, rather to exist no more, rather the inconscient, than to be burning there, without any way out. And when the moment presents itself, this time around, one understands: one has to hold on, in the silence and the calm, one has to hold good and steady, unmoving, one must hold and hold on – to gather oneself into the arms of the Grace, till it passes.

And not respond to it.

Not adhere to it.

It is not what one is.

This time is over.

Now there is trust: that enough love is here – present, active, effective.

***

The others – obviously – cannot be insensitive to what takes place in us.

Even though one may well keep mum, the very pressure of the change occurring in our parts will affect everyone who is near as everyone we meet.

In the measure of our own transparency and self-giving, different risks are now looming.

It would appear, at this demanding frontier, that there lies in each of us as if the germ of a spiritual ambition – and numerous are the reasons to succumb to it, the need for hope in every person being one of them. Always, one of the roles we all play mutually for one another is that of mirror or echo-chamber: and thus, at this stage of the temptation, shall we meet those who turn to us for our help or the help we may channel, as well as those who will denounce us as impostors or demons.

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