FLYING

                                             He who binds to himself a Joy
                                             Doth the winged life destroy;
                                             But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
                                             Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.  

                                                                                           William Blake        

Mystery is different than confusion or ignorance.  People tend to battle confusion and uncertainty--their own and that of others--with a nagging desire for absolute certainty and control...the twin enemies of mystery.  Since the beginning of the Enlightenment and up to this moment, religion and science have bravely attempted to supply formulae of knowledge that produce certainty.  In our own time the number of books that include “How to” in their titles affirm our preoccupation with solving problems by finding the Golden Key, Rule, Principle or Law that will fling us onto the shores of a predictable paradise.

Along with certainty, the idea of safety is widely promulgated.  Our own government has promised peace through strength, leaving one with the impression that only the strong have access to peace, and only the powerful are safe.  To be sure, the desire to feel safe in a relationship is appropriate, even a requirement, if mutuality is to take place.  When it comes to the larger existential questions, however, the obsession with safety inhibits exploration, curiosity, and growth.

A favorite poem of mine by one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, the late Denise Levertov (she died in Seattle in 1997) gives fearless voice to the quest for existential freedom.


The Blind Man’s House at the Edge of the Cliff   

At the jutting rim of the land he lives,
but not from ignorance,
not from despair.
He knows that one extra step from his seaward
wide-open doors would be
a step into salt air,
and he has no longing to shatter himself
far below, where the breakers
grind granite to sand.
No, he has chosen a life
pitched at the brink, a nest on the swaying
tip of a branch, for good reason: 

dazzling within his darkness
is the elusive deep horizon.  Here
nothing intrudes, palpable shade,
between his eager inward gaze
and the vast enigma.
If he could fly he would drift forever
into that veil, soft and receding. 

He knows that if he could see
he would be no wiser.
High on the windy cliff he breathes
face to face with desire.

The longing for freedom is akin to learning to fly in this sense: it always requires letting go of something; a cherished notion, a dogmatic assertion, or possibly a dysfunctional but habitual way of facing life.  Both theology and psychology refer to this as surrender. In his book Will and Spirit, Gerald May states "We may enter psychotherapy or growth groups in order to 'find ourselves,' only to discover that we have really deepened our questions.  Though we love those precious moments when we are awed by the wondrous, endless truth of life, we may also find ourselves terrified because those very moments rob us of our solid images of who we are." Indeed, we may feel unsafe and uncertain upon entering the turbulence of not knowing-with-certainty because self-surrender appears to be another form of death.  Facing the winds of uncertainty, therefore, requires courageous faith.  Faith by definition is more about not knowing than knowing. The blind man at the edge of the cliff might appear as a fool, but perhaps his faith provides him with a knowing-beyond-knowledge because he dared to face into the wind and breathe the rarefied air of the wise.