The Makers of Men and Myth
This recent Christmas was extremely special to me. In so many ways, it was like the first one that I have ever had. Sure, there were young sleepless nights, spent tossing and turning while St. Nicholas flew from home to home. But this one was my first Christmas as a true, unwavering, and comfortable Christian. The joy is unequal…the pleasure overflowing.
For so long Christmas had a strict commercial meaning to me, and I’m sure many of you experience it all the same. I was constantly caught up in the giving and receiving, paying little attention to the ultimate act of giving that we celebrate on that day. This year was the perfect storm. I was so completely busy with life and work that I never had any chance to focus on the material and I was in desperate need of replenishment, as my soul was so dry and devoid of love or hope.
On Christmas Eve I sat in mass with my mother, discussing my life–failures and accomplishments, goals and aspirations. We sat, in the most beautiful of sanctuaries, as the people flowed in. We were early; we’re always early. I felt so incredibly thankful and at peace, a true calm I have not experienced in so long that I cannot recall. Half way through our discussion I fell silent, inadvertedly ignoring my mother. But I was captivated. I realized that this was the first Vigil Mass that I had sat as a true believer, without doubt and fear. But as a simple citizen. Yes, my flaws as a practicing Christian are blatant, as are the flagrant fouls I commit at work and in my personal life, but that is what I love: redemption, replenishment, and a chance to begin anew.
I felt as though I were the only person on Earth. I looked up at the man collapsed, yet nailed, to a wooden cross and I thought…thank you, thank you for every pebble you laid before me to form the path.
I am constantly stricken with the burden of logic and the desire for faith. I used to find the two incompatible on so many levels, but I believe now that logic itself is based largely upon faith. Faith that what you know will always hold true; faith that what you have been told about the world and its systems will not change or alter; faith that there is no reason to hold onto faith… My world paradigms no longer conflict, but form a tranquil and expansive wave that crashes over the oceans of my mind. Where I find no solid answer, I find solace in the faith of the unknown…where the faith of the unknown scares me, I cling to that which I believe to know and let it carry me through the day.
A harmony. A conscious synergy.
I am not perfect. Sitting with my mother I knew too well of my failures, as she was clear to elucidate them. But I am in no need for perfection–merely the perfect understanding that I am a whim, a will, a body, and a soul…and one day I will transcend this world, never shall I die, and I will meet the Myth Maker himself.
And we will smile, or something akin to that. Together, forever, or maybe simply for a moment…I do not think I will care…and certainly neither will He. For the oceans of my mind will become all that I am, where faith and logic meet and all that is left is the raw humanity from which I began, a primordial soup of love and hate, of yin and yang, of everything and nothing at all…
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