Person and Presence: a venture for a sense of the real

This essay was written during the end of the spring semester of my last year in seminary with the Maryknoll Fathers – the foreign missionary society of the American Catholic Church. It was1966, my eighth year in seminary. That semester was the peak of a very personal turbulence – as the beliefs that had led me to Maryknoll were falling away.

The previous summer I had studied Physical and Cultural Anthropology at Cornell University. It was an intense five weeks in a totally secular environment and my first serious exposure to theories of evolution. The year prior to that, I was already reading widely in the social sciences and in existential philosophy and literature.

The core of this crisis for me was the growing realization that we create meaning; that meanings were not ‘given’. With this realization, the foundation for the beliefs that nurtured me all my life was shaken beyond recovery. It’s hard for me now to recover the depth of anxiety I was experiencing at that time.

Still taking classes, I was a member of a Theology seminar in which each student was assigned a topic to present for discussion. I was assigned the topic: “The person of God and His presence”. Up until the evening before the assignment was due, I simply could not get myself to write another ‘theology’ paper. I also could not avoid the assignment.

Under the pressure of that dilemma, I wrote this essay: Person and Presence: a venture for a sense of the real.

It was the first public statement to the faculty and my classmates; a statement attempting to reconcile myself to what I was able to say honestly about my belief.

Though written in a language I would not use today, it represents a basic attitude that remains with me to this day. The kernel of this realization can be found in everything I write.

The following December, I left the seminary: the home that had nurtured me and opened me.

Person and Presence: a venture for a sense of the real

evening

I am sitting here by my window looking out over the whole world … and wondering.

The wind is whining in the rafters, telling a mournful tale. I like to listen to the wind; to look out at the infinite blue sky – to get lost in it. I like to watch in amazement the clouds, white, racing across blue vastness; the river, silver strip in the sun shining beauty.

All this speaks to me.

There is some kind of rapport between this scene and what goes on inside me. I look and respond with something like a song – an uncontrollable excitement – in impulse to dance with the leaves in the wind! It seems to speak to me; but its word is never defined; never made explicit.

In my excitement, I posit a voice for the wind. But I know better.

I am aware.

This wind, which on one day whispers warm and gentle words of love, will, on another, shatter my house to pieces. And the sparkling strip shinning sun, will one day darken and raise itself up, attacking the land and devouring all before it. Sometimes I attribute personality to what is beyond me; but I know better than to believe it. They are forces – beautiful at times, but unconcerned. They carry on without taking me into account. They are impersonal.

They do not know me.

Cruel and benign have no meaning in them. They have no intent. They can kill me, but they cannot hate me. I can know them, but I cannot stand in their presence. They are organized, coordinated and function together. I can probe their function and their order. I can alter and utilize them – all without resistance. They do not seek to baffle me. They lie open before me … unconcerned.

I know them and I can name them. And I exult in my power and delight in my inquiry.

But that does not satisfy me.

They cannot know me. And I seek to be known. I seek to find presence. I get lonely naming things by myself. I want someone to call my name – to recognize me.

And they do.

I have many names – all given. I am seen in many different lights.

When someone calls my name, I am happy! I am really very happy!

And I smile, inside and out, and say: “Yes! I am here!” I fit. I am taken into account. I am “in with…”

We are together in a context!

I long for my name to be called. I stand anxiously in the silence … waiting. And waiting in the silence is a trial.

So, I will seek out a context in which to be known. I will work. I will support the effort. I will play along with… I will be a brother, a seminarian, philosopher…

When someone calls my name, I am anxious not to disturb the context. I want to be called again.

It’s crazy! Many times I am called freely, without my seeking a context. I am discovered! And I am happy – god, how happy! Someone says: “I love you the way you are….”

Right out of the blue, I’m in! I am in a context. And I love that context. And I don’t want that context disturbed.

We are present and I am feeling the power of that presence; first in happiness – and then in anxiety. I am defined and I do not want that definition threatened. I am feeling bound by my longing to be known.

And in my longing to be known, when I am called, and find myself in a context, I want to express and ratify and affirm my happiness – and the context. I call the other by name, my co-worker, my fellow student, my friend, the one who loves me. When I call out that name, I express and affirm the context – which I don’t want disturbed. I realize: “I too have the power of presence. I can bestow a gift; and I can bind. I can create a context!”

Now, in my longing to be known, I seek to understand and to know. I can recognize, discover and call by name. I can define a context with another. As I become more aware of this, I look for a pair of eyes that are nervously waiting to be called. And I call. And as I know, I am known – as the one who understands.

Someone says to me:

“I want to be near you – you, a person whom I love; who is my good friend; to whom I can be close. I can be blunt with you because you’ll understand me.”

And I am happy! How very happy! But I don’t want the context disturbed. I am anxious to know, to understand. But what if I don’t understand? And what if that someone finds out?

And now, in my longing to be known, I seek to be hidden…somewhat. And I begin to be silent…somewhat. I don’t want to disturb the context.

I seek to control how I am known.

When, after my name is called and the first burst of happiness falls upon me, everything is transformed!

I walk in the sun and the wind; and I feel like dancing with the leaves. The pine trees nod and whisper my name; and little blades of grass wave sunlight at me as I pass by. And I am smiling, a silly, grinning smile. I feel as though the sun sees me; and the wind is calling my name; and the blue vastness knows me. I feel as though I am present to the total reality. Momentarily, I give the wind a voice and the sun a pair of eyes. But I am not fooled.

I am aware.

The sun does not know me. I only wish it did.

And now, I seek to hold onto my context. Given or created, my context is always threatened with decay; always fleeting and never completely under my control. And I shrivel up in fear at the prospect of being without a context.

I don’t want to be forgotten.

I don’t want to be alone.

I don’t want to be a stranger.

I want to be ‘at home’ – always and everywhere.

But I am aware. And as being aware, I am longing to be known. Yet, my awareness itself threatens every context. Every context within which I find myself forces me to face the possibility of lack of total context.

No name I have can justify my existence.

As I become my name more and more in little bursts of happiness, the stench of death becomes more frightening. Its stinking suddenness frightens me into seeking to be hidden … somewhat.

I am aware.

I know the sun does not care. I am very careful about positing personality as big as the sky; as powerful as the wind; as knowing as the sun.

And I am sad. Because I know – only that will do.

o god

what a longing we are!

what a longing

for a love

as big and as open

as the sky

that sees us

and knows!

***

morning

It is cold; morning cold now.

And the sun, sighing pink dying last night, is back again. Back again struggling to attain to a height it cannot maintain. The river is blue. The sky is white. And the wind is still.

And I am shivering in cold anxiety. I too am struggling to attain a height I cannot maintain. I am now, in this very writing, seeking to create a context with you and feeling the threat of its finitude.

I want to write well. I want to seize upon all that is whirling within me and capture it – just so. I want to present it to you in pleasing array, moving form. I want you to say:“ Good job…!”, philosopher, theologian … and poet perhaps. I don’t want the context threatened. I don’t want to fail in my expression.

Yet, I want to speak the truth … somewhat: the truth that you and I both feel … somewhat.

I am longing to be known. But I am also longing to be aware. I realize the futility of trying to buy one at the expense of the other.

I am aware.

Where is God … really?

And what is His name?

I don’t know … somewhat.

I have been wandering; in a maze, holding my stomach in metaphysical malaise. I have been wandering and wondering.

And so have you.

I can see it in the lines of your eyes when you smile. I can hear it in the nervousness of your laughter. I can feel it in your perturbed silence when I speak this way. And sometimes, we even feel at-one in a mutual recognition of abandonment.

After all, it is a context.

You, like I, are aware; and likewise, very hesitant about attributing personality to something beyond us.

Everywhere, I am frightened by the stinking suddenness of death and failure. And so are you.

You and I are longing to be known, not somewhat, but completely. And we are afraid that it is not really possible. Words of comfort no longer suffice. And Theology has become a frightening bore – a song to sing us to sleep. And we do sleep … somewhat.

After all, it is a context.

We are aware and longing to be known. And yet, we cannot provide the fuller context. We cannot make it real by a dream. And we are afraid it is not really there.

Where is God … really?

And what is His name?

When and how is He really present?

I have looked at the world. I have looked at myself. I have looked at you and I together. I have looked at those whom I love and who love me.

Now I look at Jesus of the Gospel.

I look at Jesus and I can say what I want to say very briefly:

Jesus, the Word, the Presence, is a man who knowingly and willingly died out of context.

This is revelation.

The glory of the Lord, says Jesus, resides on a bush in the middle of nowhere. And I see. And out of curiosity I ask: “What is your name?”

I am told: “My name is my name. You, go back to the land where they are waiting to kill you and lead my people out!”

I ask: “Where are you?” And all I get is: “We must go out into the desert to worship our God!”

The glory of the Lord resides on a broken tree – outstretched, bloody and wind whipped; on a hill, outside the gates of the city. Without father, without mother, this Melchisedic is completely out of context. And he says:

“Father…”

That is revelation. That is where the glory of the Lord resides – always.

And one whom you would least expect says: “This Adam is truly the son of God!”

Jesus – out of context.

I look at Jesus and hear what he has to say. He says: leave your mother and your father and follow me! He says: Unless the seed falls and dies, it remains alone – forever out of context. Someone asks him: Where do you live? He doesn’t say: I live here or there. He says: Come and see.

The glory of the Lord is in the desert. The desert is where I anxiously await to hear my name called, really … and refrain from creating a context to sooth my aching belly.

If anything is true, this is how God is present:

A man, aware and longing to be known, dying as son in the middle of nowhere.

I am trying to write from what is real to me. And what is real is my longing. My longing is more real than my assent. And that is why I find it so difficult to write about the Presence of God.

I am aware. I realize that I can’t bear the burden of a total context. And even in my longing to be known, I don’t want to be less aware. In the experience of my life that is most real to me, I am able to identify with Jesus … somewhat.

I can hear what Jesus has to say. I can say: if truth is, he is the truth. But I am a seed that is only somewhat willing to die; only somewhat willing to be out of a context I can’t control.

But now my awareness is making me tired. I am tired of holding on to futility. I am tired of the unending stream of words; words that do not comfort, but mock. I am tired of the “terminology” – which seems at times to be a game of noisemaking designed to ward off the silence from bursting in and devouring us – a game of creating a context.

I want to stop.

And be silent.

And be still.

I want to live through my tangle with epistemology without frantic haste. I want to wait in silence long enough to inhale deeply the stinking suddenness of death and failure.

I want to stop hanging on to my context – philosopher, theologian, whatever it might be. It’s too busy for me.

I want to stop chattering about Person and Presence …

and learn how to let it be.

Let it be on its own.

Let everything be on its own.

One day, I tried to express this in two poems. It’s a paradox: two poems about presence, which seem to say more about absence. But that is the nature of my experience: paradoxical.

It’s how I identify with Jesus.

Two looks at Jesus on a rainy day

(11/12/65)

oh gray day see wind

God free

stay with me flying over man

please dying

raining on God

green broken tree crying me

in the wind see

South Garden Press, New York

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