Saturday, February 2, 2008

Primi Discipuli

You can substitute viewing for hearing. In seeing, you will believe.

Did you notice, Beloved, how much seeing, perceiving, viewing, and gazing there is in John's writing? It was so important for me in the days of my disability that I could see and in seeing feel, even if I could not hear.

When our father, Tertius, performed this part of the Gospel, as with other parts, he moved from one place to another showing our eyes the ones who were acting. There is one who did not form part of the action but he was there though not named. You can see him from his silence.

Messengers ascending and descending; this is the gift of God to Jacob, the house of God, the gateway of heaven. He makes his home in us - such will be John's message - us his dwelling. We see where he stays - he stays in us, his Beloved.

Deception is part of our self-defense. How can we live if everything we are is visible under the fig tree? Nathanael is like Uncle Mark. You remember his own story?

And Jesus looking upon him loved him
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– Give everything away,

I was in the garden when the soldiers came. And Judas kissed him. And I will tell you that I knew Joshua’s kiss already. It was that day when he said to me

– Give everything away.

Immediately he was so present. And something held me and not my own strength.

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Explanation cannot hold love. During the war, as I recounted elsewhere, Tertius took us out of Jerusalem to Cyrenica, then six years later to Cyprus, my mother Ruth's home, and then to Corinth. In Greece, I cannot avoid explanation. To explain is not to see. I live too close to the centre of philosophy, but I do not translate to explain and I do not write my history to explain. I write for you, Beloved. I translate for love and I write for the same - as you will know. What has Jerusalem to do with Athens? I was born in one and live near the other. Athens divides, decides, reduces. Jerusalem is where love was revealed. Love lives to allow explanation but it will not yield to it. The one who holds on will receive the blessing. Clearly Jacob is better at wrestling, however jealous Athens is of Jacob's crown.

So I see and believe.

The truth, little brother, is that I see right through you. Like the gift of God, you have no guile.

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